The  Last  Lea 


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By  James  Kendall  Hosmer 


The  Story  of  the  Jews 

(In  the  Story  of  the  Nations  Series) 

The  Last  Leaf 

(Personal  Reminiscences) 


?-~~  K«--(-*/|UWr 


From  a  photograph  by  Sweet,   Minneapolis 


The   Last   Leaf 

Observations,    during   Seventy-five  Years, 

of  Men  and  Events  in  America 

and  Europe 


By 

James  Kendall  Hosmer,  LL.D. 

Member  of  the  Minnesota  Historical  Society,  Corresponding  Member  of 

the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  and  the  Colonial 

Society  of  Massachusetts 

Author  of  "  A  Short  History  of  German  Literature,"  "  The  Story  of  the 

Jews,"  the  Lives  of  Samuel  Adams,  Thomas  Jefferson, 

Sir  Henry  Vane,  etc. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 

ZTbe    fmicfterbocker   press 

1912 


Copyright,  1912 

BY 

JAMES    KENDALL    HOSMER 


Tttbe  ftnfcfterbocker  press,  Wew  Korft 


FOREWORD 

STANDING  on  the  threshold  of  my  eightieth 
year,  stumbling  badly,  moreover,  through  the 
mutiny,  well  justified,  of  a  pair  of  worn-out  eyes, 
I,  a  veteran  maker  of  books,  must  look  forward 
to  the  closing  of  an  over-long  series. 

I  retain  in  my  memory  certain  films,  which 
record  impressions  of  long  ago.  Can  I  not  pos- 
sibly develop  and  present  these  film  records  for 
a  moving  picture  of  the  men  and  events  of  an 
eventful  period? 

We  old  story-tellers  do  our  talking  under  a 
heavy  handicap.  Homer,  long  ago,  found  us 
garrulous,  and  compared  us  to  cicadas  chirping 
unprofitably  in  the  city-gate.  In  the  modern 
time,  too,  Dr.  Holmes,  ensconced  in  smug  youth, 
could  "  sit  and  grin  "  at  one  of  our  kind  as  he 

"  Totters  o'er  the  ground 
With  his  cane. " 

He  thought 

"  His  breeches  and  all  that 
Were  so  queer ." 

The  "  all  that "  is  significant.     To  the  callow 

iii 

255433 


iv  Foreword 

young  doctor,  men  of  our  kind  were  throughout 
queered,  and  so,  too,  think  the  spruce  and  jaunty 
company  who  are  shouldering  us  so  fast  out  of 
the  front  place.  In  their  thought  we  are  more 
than  depositors  of  last  leaves,  in  fact  we  are  last 
leaves  ourselves,  capable  in  the  green  possibly  of 
a  pleasant  murmur,  but  in  the  dry  with  no  voice 
but  a  rattle  prophetic  of  winter.  I  hope  Dr. 
Holmes  lived  to  repent  his  grin.  At  any  rate 
he  lived  to  refute  the  notion  that  youthful  fire 
and  white  hairs  exclude  each  other.  If  we  must 
totter,  what  ground  we  have  to  totter  over,  with 
two  generations  and  more  behind  us!  The 
ground  is  ours.  We  only  have  looked  into  the 
faces  of  the  great  actors,  and  have  taken  part 
in  the  epoch-making  events.  As  I  unroll  my 
panorama  I  may  totter,  but  I  hope  I  shall  not 
dodder. 

Retiring,  as  I  must  soon  do  from  my  somewhat 
Satanic  activity,  from  "  going  to  and  fro  in  the 
earth  and  walking  up  and  down  in  it,"  I  can 
claim,  like  my  ill-reputed  exemplar,  to  have  en- 
countered some  patient  Jobs,  servants  of  the 
Lord,  but  more  who  were  impatient,  yet  not 
the  less  the  Lord's  servants,  and  the  outward 
semblance  of  these  I  try  to  present.  My  pictures 
have  to  some  extent  been  exhibited  before,  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  the  New  York  Evening  Post, 
and  the  Boston  Transcript,  and  I  am  indebted 
to  the  courtesy  of  the  publishers  of  these  periodi- 
cals for  permission  to  utilise  them  here.     I  am 


Fore-word  v 

emboldened  by  the  favour  they  met  to  present 
them  again  to  the  public,  retouched,  and  ex- 
panded. I  attempt  no  elaborate  characterisa- 
tion of  men,  or  history  of  events  or  exposition 
of  philosophies.  My  films  are  snap-shots,  caught 
from  the  curbstone,  from  the  gallery  of  an 
assembly,  in  a  scholar's  study,  or  by  the  light 
of  a  camp-fire.  I  have  ventured  to  address  my 
reader  as  friend  might  talk  to  a  friend,  with 
the  freedom  of  familiar  intercourse,  and  I  hope 
that  the  reader  may  not  be  conscious  of  any 
undue  intrusion  of  the  showman  as  the  figures 
and  scenes  appear.  Go,  little  book,  with  this 
setting  forth  of  what  you  are  and  aim  to  do. 


J.  K.  H. 


Minneapolis, 
October,  4,  1912. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

STATESMEN   OF    OUR    CRITICAL    PERIOD 

"  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too."  Millard  Fillmore.  Abraham 
Lincoln  at  Church.  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  Daniel  Webster. 
William  H.  Seward.  Edward  Everett.  Robert  C.  Win- 
throp.  Charles  Sumner.  John  A.  Andrew.  .      .      .  pp.  1-27 

CHAPTER  II 

SOLDIERS   I    HAVE   MET 

U.  S.  Grant.  Philip  H.  Sheridan.  George  G.  Meade. 
W.  T.  Sherman.  Jacob  D.  Cox.  N.  P.  Banks.  B.  F. 
Butler.  John  Pope.  Henry  W.  Slocum.  O.  O.  Howard. 
Rufus  Saxton.  James  H.  Wilson.  T.  W.  Sherman.  Horatio 
G.  Wright.  Isaac  I.  Stevens.  Harvard  Soldiers.  W.  F. 
Bartlett.    Charles  R.  Lowell.    Francis  C.  Barlow,  pp.  28-66 

CHAPTER  III 

HORACE  MANN  AND  ANTIOCH   COLLEGE 

Horace  Mann.  "  The  New  Wrinkle  at  Sweetbrier." 
Dramatics  in  the  Schools  of  Germany,  of  France,  of 
England,  at  Antioch  College pp.  67-100 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE   GIANT    IN    THE    SPIKED    HELMET 

Prussia  in  1870.  Militarism  in  the  Schools,  in  the  Uni- 
versities, in  the  Home,  in  the  Sepulchre.  The  Hohenzollern 
Lineage pp.  108-136 


viii  Contents 

CHAPTER  V 

A  STUDENT'S  EXPERIENCE  IN  THE  FRANCO-PRUSSIAN  WAR 

Kaiser  Wilhelm  der  Grosse.  The  Emperor  Frederick. 
Wilhelm  II.  Francis  Joseph  of  Austria.  King  Ludwig  of 
Bavaria.  Munich  in  War-time.  A  Deserted  Switzerland. 
France  in  Arms.    Paris  on  the  Verge  of  the  Siege. 

pp.   137-160 

CHAPTER  VI 

AMERICAN    HISTORIANS 

George  Bancroft.  Justin  Winsor.  John  Fiske.  pp.  161-178 
CHAPTER  VII 

ENGLISH   AND   GERMAN    HISTORIANS 

Sir  Richard  Garnett.  S.  R.  Gardiner.  E.  A.  Freeman. 
Goldwin  Smith.  James  Bryce.  The  House  of  Commons. 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill  and  W.  E.  Gladstone  as  Makers 
of  History.  Von  Treitschke.  Ernst  Curtius.  Leopold  von 
Ranke.    Theodor  Mommsen.     Lepsius.    Hermann  Grimm. 

pp.  179-215 

CHAPTER  VIII 

POETS   AND   PROPHETS 

Henry  W.  Longfellow.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.  James 
Russell  Lowell.  The  Town  of  Concord.  Henry  D.  Thoreau. 
Louisa  M.  Alcott.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson.     Phillips  Brooks pp.  216-262 

CHAPTER  IX 

MEN   OP   SCIENCE 

German  Scientists:  Kirchoff,  the  Physicist.  Bunsen,  the 
Chemist.  Helmholtz.  American  Scientists:  Simon  New- 
comb,  Asa  Gray,  Louis  Agassiz,  Alexander  Agassiz. 

pp.  263-295 


Contents  ix 

CHAPTER  X 

AT   HAPHAZARD 

William  Grey,  Ninth  Earl  of  Stamford.  The  Franciscan 
of  Salzburg.  The  Berlin  Dancer.  Visits  to  Old  Battle- 
fields.    Eupeptic  Musings. pp.  296-334 

Index pp.  335-340 


The  Last  Leaf 


CHAPTER  I 

STATESMEN  OF  OUR  CRITICAL  PERIOD 

CAME  to  consciousness  in  the  then  small 
*  town  of  Buffalo  in  western  New  York, 
whither,  in  Andrew  Jackson's  day,  our  house- 
hold gods  and  goods  were  conveyed  from  Massa- 
chusetts for  the  most  part  by  the  Erie  Canal, 
the  dizzy  rate  of  four  miles  an  hour  not  taking 
away  my  baby  breath.  Speaking  of  men  and 
affairs  of  state,  as  I  shall  do  in  this  opening 
paper,  I  felt  my  earliest  political  thrill  in  1840. 
I  have  a  distinct  vision,  the  small  boy's  point 
of  view  being  not  much  above  the  sidewalk,  of 
the  striding  legs  in  long  processions,  of  wide- 
open,  clamorous  mouths  above,  and  over  all  of 
the  flutter  of  tassels  and  banners.  Then  began 
my  knowledge  of  log-cabins,  coon -skins,  and  of  the 
name  hard  cider,  the  thump  of  drums,  the  crash 
of  brass-bands,  cockades,  and  torch-lights.  My 
powers  as  a  singer,  always  modest,  I  first  exer- 


2  The  Last  Leaf 

cised  on  "  For  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too,"  which 
still  obtrudes  too  obstinately  upon  my  tym- 
panum, though  much  fine  harmony  heard  since 
in  cathedrals  and  the  high  shrines  of  music  is 
quite  powerless  now  to  make  that  organ  vibrate. 
Four  years  later,  my  emerging  voice  did  better 
justice  to  "  Harry  Clay  of  Old  Kentucky,"  and 
my  early  teens  found  me  in  an  environment  that 
quickened  prematurely  my  interest  in  public 
affairs.  My  father,  the  pioneer  apostle  of  an 
unpopular  faith,  ministered  in  a  small  church 
of  brick  faced  with  stone  to  a  congregation 
which,  though  few  in  numbers,  contained  some 
remarkable  people.  Millard  Fillmore  and  his 
partner,  Nathan  K.  Hall,  soon  to  be  Postmaster- 
General,  were  of  his  fold,  together  with  Hiram 
Barton,  the  city's  mayor,  and  other  figures 
locally  noteworthy.  Fillmore  was  only  an  ac- 
cidental President,  dominated,  no  doubt,  and 
dwarfed  in  the  perspective  by  greater  men, 
while  the  part  he  played  in  a  great  crisis 
brought  upon  him  obloquy  with  many  good  peo- 
ple. "  Say  what  you  will  about  Fillmore,"  said 
a  fellow-totterer  to  me  the  other  day,  adjusting 
his  "  store  "  teeth  for  an  emphatic  declaration, 
"  by  signing  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill  he  saved 
the  country.  That  act  postponed  the  Civil  War 
ten  years.  Had  it  come  in  1850,  as  it  assuredly 
would  but  for  that  scratch  of  Fillmore's  pen, 
the  Union  would  have  gone  by  the  board.  The 
decade  that  followed  greatly  increased  the  rela- 


Millard  Fillmore  3 

tive  strength  of  the  North.  A  vast  immigration 
poured  in  which  almost  universally  came  to 
stand  for  the  Union.  Moreover  the  expanding 
West,  whose  natural  outlet  until  then  had  been 
down  the  Mississippi  to  the  South,  became  now 
linked  to  the  East  by  great  lines  of  railroad, 
and  West  and  East  entered  into  such  a  new 
bond  of  sympathy  that  there  was  nothing  for 
it,  in  a  time  of  trial,  but  to  stand  together.  As 
it  was,  it  was  only  by  the  narrowest  margin 
that  the  Union  weathered  the  storm.  Had  it 
come  ten  years  earlier,  wreck  would  have 
been  inevitable,  and  it  is  to  Fillmore's  signa- 
ture that  we  owe  that  blessed  postponement." 
As  the  old  man  spoke,  I  had  a  vision  of  the 
grave,  troubled  face  of  my  father  as  he  told  us 
once  of  a  talk  he  had  just  had  with  Mr.  Fill- 
more. The  relations  of  the  pastor  and  the 
parishioner,  always  cordial,  had  become  more 
than  ever  friendly  through  an  incident  credit- 
able to  both.  Mr.  Fillmore  had  good-naturedly 
offered  my  father  a  chaplaincy  in  the  Navy,  a 
post  with  a  comfortable  salary,  which  he  might 
easily  hold,  taking  now  and  then  a  pleasant  sea- 
cruise  with  light  duties,  or  indeed  not  leaving 
home  at  all,  by  occasional  trips  and  visits  to  the 
one  man-of-war  which  the  Government  main- 
tained on  the  Great  Lakes.  To  an  impecunious 
minister,  with  a  large  family  to  educate,  it  was  a 
tempting  offer.  But  my  father  in  those  days 
was  a  peace-man,  and  he  was  also  disinclined  to 


4  THe  Last  Leaf 

nibble  at  the  public  crib  while  rendering  no 
adequate  service.  He  declined  the  appointment, 
a  course  much  censured.  "  The  fool  parson,  to 
let  such  a  chance  go ! "  Mr.  Fillmore  admired 
it  and  their  friendship  became  heartier  than 
ever.  In  the  interview,  my  father  had  asked  his 
friend  to  explain  his  course  on  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  an  act  involving  suffering  for  so 
many,  and  no  doubt  took  on  a  tone  of  remon- 
strance. He  told  us  the  President  raised  his 
hands  in  vehement  appeal.  He  had  only  a 
choice  between  terrible  evils — to  inflict  suffering 
which  he  hoped  might  be  temporary,  or  to  pre- 
cipitate an  era  of  bloodshed  with  the  destruction 
of  the  country  as  a  probable  result.  He  did  not 
do  evil  that  good  might  come,  but  of  two 
imminent  evils  he  had,  as  he  believed,  chosen 
the  lesser. 

Fillmore  lives  in  my  memory  a  stately,  massive 
presence,  with  hair  growing  grey  and  kindly 
blue  eyes  looking  down  upon  the  little  boy  with 
a  pleasant  greeting.  His  wife  was  gentle  and 
unassuming.  His  daughter  Abby  matured  into 
much  beauty  and  grace,  and  her  sudden  death, 
by  cholera,  in  the  bloom  of  young  womanhood 
cast  a  shadow  on  the  nation.  They  were  homely 
folk,  thrust  up  suddenly  into  high  position,  but 
it  did  not  turn  their  heads.  In  their  lives  they 
were  plainly  sweet  and  honest.  No  taint  of 
corruption  attaches  to  Fillmore  in  either  his 
private  or  public  career.     He  was  my  father's 


Abraham  Lincoln  5 

friend.  I  think  lie  meant  well,  and  am  glad  that 
our  most  authoritative  historian  of  the  period, 
Rhodes,  can  say  that  he  discharged  the  duties 
of  his  high  office  "with  ability  and  honour." 

When  in  February,  1861,  Abraham  Lincoln,  on 
his  way  to  Washington,  arrived  in  Buffalo 
Saturday  night  and  it  became  known  he  would 
spend  Sunday,  the  town  was  alive  with  curiosity 
as  to  where  he  would  go  to  church.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln wTas  Mr.  Fillmore's  guest.  They  had  known 
each  other  well  in  Congress — Fillmore  a  veteran 
at  the  head  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means,  Lincoln  then  quite  unknown,  serving  his 
only  term.  Both  were  Whigs  of  the  old  school, 
in  close  contact  and  I  suppose  not  afterwards 
far  apart.  Lincoln  was  prepared  to  execute  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  while  Fillmore  was  devoted 
to  the  Union,  and  probably  would  have  admitted 
at  the  end  that  Lincoln's  course  throughout  was 
good.  My  father's  church  was  looked  on  some- 
what askance.  "  It 's  lucky,"  said  a  parishioner 
once,  "  that  it  has  a  stone  face."  Would  Lin- 
coln go  to  the  Unitarian  church?  Promptly  at 
service-time  Mr.  Fillmore  appeared  with  his 
guest,  the  two  historic  figures  side  by  side  in 
the  pew.  Two  or  three  rows  intervened  between 
it  and  that  in  which  sat  my  mother  and  our 
household.  I  beheld  the  scene  only  through  the 
eyes  of  my  kindred,  for  by  that  time  I  had 
flown  the  nest.  But  I  may  be  pardoned  for 
noting  here  an  interesting  spectacle.     As  they 


6  THe  Last  Leaf 

stood  during  the  hymns,  the  contrast  was  pic- 
turesque. Both  men  had  risen  from  the  rudest 
conditions  through  much  early  hardship.  Fill- 
more had  been  rocked  in  a  sap-trough  in  a  log- 
cabin  scarcely  better  than  Lincoln's  early 
shelter,  and  the  two  might  perhaps  have  played 
an  even  match  at  splitting  rails.  Fillmore, 
however,  strangely  adaptive,  had  taken  on  a 
marked  grace  of  manner,  his  fine  stature  and 
mien  carrying  a  dignified  courtliness  which  is 
said  to  have  won  him  a  handsome  compliment 
from  Queen  Victoria — a  gentleman  rotund,  well- 
groomed,  conspicuously  elegant.  Shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  him  rose  the  queer,  raw-boned, 
ramshackle  frame  of  the  Illinoisan,  draped  in 
the  artless  handiwork  of  a  prairie  tailor,  sur- 
mounted by  the  rugged,  homely  face.  The  ser- 
vice, which  the  new  auditor  followed  reverently, 
being  finished,  the  minister,  leaving  the  pulpit, 
gave  Lincoln  God-speed — and  so  he  passed  on  to 
his  greatness.  My  mother,  sister,  and  brothers 
— the  youngest  of  whom  before  two  years  were 
gone  was  to  fill  a  soldier's  grave — stood  close 
at  hand. 

I  once  saw  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  the  man  who 
was  perhaps  more  closely  associated  than  any 
other  with  the  fame  of  Lincoln,  for  he  was  the 
human  obstacle  by  overcoming  whom  Lincoln 
proved  his  fitness  for  the  supreme  place.  Douglas 
was  a  man  marvellously  strong.  Rhodes  declares 
it  would  be  hard  to  set  bounds  to  his  ability.     I 


StepHen  A..  Douglas  7 

saw  him  in  1850,  when  he  was  yet  on  the  thresh- 
old, just  beginning  to  make  upon  the  country 
an  impress  of  power.  Fillmore  had  recently, 
through  Taylor's  death,  become  President,  and 
was  making  his  first  visit  to  his  home  after  his 
elevation,  with  members  of  his  Cabinet  and  other 
conspicuous  figures  of  his  party.  How  Douglas 
came  to  be  of  the  company  I  wonder,  for  he 
was  an  ardent  Jacksonian  Democrat,  but  there 
he  was  on  the  platform  before  the  multitude, 
and  I,  a  boy  of  sixteen,  watched  him  curiously, 
for  he  was  young  as  compared  with  the  grey 
heads  about  him.  His  image,  as  he  stood  up 
to  speak,  is  very  clear  to  me  even  now — a  face 
strong-featured  and  ruddy  with  vigour  beneath 
a  massive  forehead  whose  thatch  had  the  black- 
ness and  luxuriance  of  youth.  His  trunk  was 
disproportionately  large,  carried  on  legs  sturdy 
enough  but  noticeably  short.  The  wits  used  to 
describe  him  as  the  statesman  "  with  coat-tails 
very  near  the  ground."  It  is  worth  while  to 
remark  on  this  physical  peculiarity  because  it 
was  the  direct  opposite  of  Lincoln's  configura- 
tion. He,  while  comparatively  short-bodied,  had, 
as  all  the  world  knows,  an  abnormal  length  of 
limb,  a  fact  which  I  suppose  will  account  for 
much  of  his  ungainly  manner.  In  an  ordinary 
chair  he  was  undoubtedly  uncomfortable,  and 
hence  his  familiar  attitude  with  his  feet  on  the 
table  or  over  the  mantelpiece.  The  two  fought 
each  other  long  and  sternly  on  those  memorable 


8  THe  Last  Leaf 

platforms  in  Illinois  in  1858,  and  in  their 
physique  there  must  have  been,  as  they  stood 
side  by  side,  a  grotesque  parody  of  their  intel- 
lectual want  of  harmony.  Douglas's  usual 
soubriquet  was  "  the  little  giant,"  and  it  fitted 
well — a  man  of  stalwart  proportions  oddly 
"  sawed  oft."  His  voice  was  vibrant  and  sono- 
rous, his  mien  compelling.  It  was  no  great 
speech,  a  few  sentences  of  compliment  to  the  city 
and  of  good-natured  banter  of  the  political  foes 
among  whom  he  found  himself;  but  it  was  ex 
pede  Herculem,  a  leader  red-blooded  to  the 
finger-tips.  I  treasure  the  memory  of  this  brief 
touch  into  which  I  once  came  with  Douglas  for 
I  have  come  to  think  more  kindly  of  him  as  he 
has  receded.  Not  a  few  will  now  admit  that, 
taken  generally,  his  doctrine  of  "  squatter 
sovereignty  "  was  right.  Congress  ought  not  to 
have  power  to  fix  a  status  for  people  of  future 
generations.  If  a  status  so  fixed  becomes  re- 
pugnant it  will  be  repudiated,  and  rightfully. 
Douglas  was  certainly  cool  over  the  woes  of  the 
blacks;  but  he  refused,  it  is  said,  to  grow  rich, 
when  the  opportunity  offered,  from  the  owner- 
ship of  slaves  or  from  the  proceeds  of  their 
sale.  His  rally  to  the  side  of  Lincoln  at  last 
was  finely  magnanimous  and  it  was  a  pleasant 
scene,  at  the  inauguration  of  March  4,  1861, 
when  Douglas  sat  close  by  holding  Lincoln's  hat. 
There  was  an  interview  between  the  two  men 
behind  closed  doors,  on  the  night  the  news  of 


Daniel  Webster  9 

Sumter  came,  of  which  one  would  like  to  have 
a  report.  Lincoln  came  out  from  it  to  issue, 
through  the  Associated  Press,  his  call  for  troops, 
and  Douglas  to  send  by  the  same  channel  the 
appeal  to  his  followers  to  stand  by  the  Govern- 
ment. What  could  the  administration  have  done 
without  the  faithful  arms  and  hearts  of  the  War 
Democrats?  And  what  other  voice  but  that  of 
Douglas  could  have  rallied  them  to  its  support? 
Had  he  lived  it  seems  inevitable  that  the  two 
so  long  rivals  would  have  been  close  friends — 
that  Douglas  would  have  been  in  Lincoln's 
Cabinet,  perhaps  in  Stanton's  place.  This,  how- 
ever, is  not  a  memory  but  a  might-have-been, 
and  those  are  barred  out  in  this  Last  Leaf. 

Daniel  Webster  came  home  to  die  in  1852.  He 
was  plainly  failing  fast,  but  the  State  for  which 
he  stood  hoped  for  the  best,  and  arranged  that  he 
should  speak,  as  so  often  before,  in  Faneuil  Hall. 
As  I  walked  in  from  Harvard  College,  over  the 
long  "caterpillar  bridge"  through  Cambridge 
Street  and  Dock  Square,  my  freshman  mind  was 
greatly  perplexed.  My  mother's  family  were 
perfervid  Abolitionists,  accepting  the  extremest 
utterances  of  Garrison  and  Wendell  Phillips.  I 
was  now  in  that  environment,  and  felt  strong 
impress  from  the  power  and  sincerity  of  the 
anti-slavery  leaders.  Fillmore  and  his  Post- 
master-General, N.  K.  Hall,  were  old  family 
friends.     We  children  had  chummed  with  their 


io  The  Last  Leaf 

children.  Their  kindly,  honest  faces  were 
among  the  best  known  to  us  in  the  circle  of 
our  elders.  I  had  learned  to  respect  no  men 
more.  I  was  about  to  behold  Webster,  Fill- 
more's chief  secretary  and  counsellor.  On  the 
one  hand  he  was  much  denounced,  on  the  other 
adored,  in  each  case  with  fiery  vehemence,  and 
in  my  little  world  the  contrasting  passions 
were  wildly  ablaze.  In  the  mass  that  crowded 
Faneuil  Hall  we  waited  long,  an  interval  partly 
filled  by  the  eccentric  and  eloquent  Father 
Taylor,  the  seamen's  preacher,  whom  the  crowd 
espied  in  the  gallery  and  summoned  clamor- 
ously. My  mood  was  serious,  and  it  jarred 
upon  me  when  a  classmate,  building  on  current 
rumours,  speculated  irreverently  as  to  the  prob- 
able contents  of  the  pitcher  on  Mr.  Webster's 
desk.  He  came  at  last,  tumultuously  accom- 
panied and  received,  and  advanced  to  the  front, 
his  large  frame,  if  I  remember  right,  dressed 
in  the  blue  coat  with  brass  buttons  and  buff 
vest  usual  to  him  on  public  occasions,  which 
hung  loosely  about  the  attenuated  limbs  and 
body.  The  face  had  all  the  majesty  I  expected, 
the  dome  above,  the  deep  eyes  looking  from  the 
caverns,  the  strong  nose  and  chin,  but  it  wras 
the  front  of  a  dying  lion.  His  colour  was 
heavily  sallow,  and  he  walked  with  a  slow,  un- 
certain step.  His  low,  deep  intonations  con- 
veyed a  solemn  suggestion  of  the  sepulchre.  His 
speech  was  brief,  a  recognition  of  the  honour 


Daniel  Webster  n 

shown  him,  an  expression  of  his  belief  that  the 
policy  he  had  advocated  and  followed  was  neces- 
sary to  the  country's  preservation.  Then  he 
passed  out  to  Marshfield  and  the  death-bed. 
What  he  said  was  not  much,  but  it  made  a 
strange  impression  of  power,  and  here  I  am 
minded  to  tell  an  ancient  story.  Sixty  years 
ago,  when  I  was  ensconced  in  my  smug  youth, 
and  could  "  sit  and  grin/'  like  young  Dr.  Holmes, 
at  the  queer nesses  of  the  last  leaves  of  those 
days,  I  heard  a  totterer  whose  ground  was  the 
early  decades  of  the  last  century,  chirp  as 
follows : 

"  This  Daniel  Webster  of  yours !  Why,  I  can 
remember  when  he  had  a  hard  push  to  have  his 
ability  acknowledged.  We  used  to  aver  that  he 
never  said  anything,  and  that  it  was  only  his 
big  way  that  carried  the  crowd.  I  have  in  mind 
an  old-time  report  of  one  of  his  deliverances: 
6  Mr.  Chairman  {applause),  I  did  not  graduate 
at  this  university  {greater  applause),  at  this 
college  {tumultuous  applause),  I  graduated  at 
another  college  {wild  cheering  with  hats  throivn 
in  the  air),  I  graduated  at  a  college  of  my 
native  State  {convulsions  of  enthusiasm,  during 
which  the  police  spread  mattresses  to  catch  those 
who  leaped  from  the  windows)?" 

That  day  in  Faneuil  Hall  I  felt  his  "  big  way  " 
and  it  overpowered,  though  the  sentences  were 
really  few  and  commonplace.  Wliat  must  he 
have  been  in  his  prime!     What  sentences  in  the 


12  THe  Last  Leaf 

whole  history  of  oratory  have  more  swayed  men 
than  those  he  uttered !  I  recall  that  in  1861  we 
young  men  of  the  North  did  not  much  argue 
the  question  of  the  right  of  secession.  The  Con- 
stitution was  obscure  about  it,  and  one  easily 
became  befogged  if  he  sought  to  weigh  the  right 
and  the  wrong  of  it.  But  Webster  had  replied 
to  Hayne.  Those  were  the  days  when  school- 
boys "  spoke  pieces,"  and  in  thousands  of  school- 
houses  the  favourite  piece  was  his  matchless 
peroration.  From  its  opening,  "  When  my  eyes 
shall  be  turned  to  behold  for  the  last  time  the 
sun  in  the  heavens,"  to  the  final  outburst, 
"  Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and 
inseparable !  "  it  was  all  as  familiar  to  us  as 
the  sentences  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  scarcely 
less  consecrated.  No  logical  unravelling  of  the 
tangle,  but  that  burning  expression  of  devotion 
to  the  Union,  lay  behind  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  we  sprang  to  arms.  The  ghost  of  Webster 
hovered  in  the  battle-smoke,  and  it  was  his  call 
more  than  any  other  that  rallied  and  kept  us 
at  the  firing-line. 

T  think  my  mother  told  me  once  that  on  the 
canal-boat  as  we  went  West  in  the  thirties,  we 
had  Webster  for  a  time  as  a  fellow-passenger, 
who  good-naturedly  patted  the  heads  of  the  two 
little  boys  who  then  made  up  her  brood.  I  wish 
I  could  be  sure  that  the  hand  of  Webster  had 
once  rested  on  my  head.  His  early  utterances 
as  to  slavery  are  warm  with  humane  feeling.     I 


William  H.  Seward  13 

have  come  to  feel  that  his  humanity  did  not 
cool,  but  he  grew  into  the  belief  that  agitation 
at  the  time  would  make  sure  the  destruction  of 
the  country,  in  his  eyes  the  supreme  calamity. 
The  injustice,  hoary  from  antiquity,  not  recog- 
nised as  injustice  until  within  a  generation  or 
two,  might  wait  a  generation  or  two  longer  be- 
fore we  dealt  with  it.  Let  the  evil  be  endured 
a  while  that  the  greater  evil  might  not  come. 
I  neither  defend  nor  denounce  him.  I  am  now 
only  remembering;  and  what  a  stately  and 
solemn  image  it  is  to  remember! 

William  H.  Seward,  unlike  Webster,  had  the 
handicap  of  an  unimpressive  exterior,  nor  had 
his  voice  the  profound  and  conquering  note 
which  is  so  potent  an  ally  of  the  mind  in  sub- 
duing men.  I  heard  Seward's  oration  at  Ply- 
mouth in  1855,  a  worthy  effort  which  may  be 
read  in  his  works,  but  I  do  better  here  to  pick 
up  only  the  straws,  not  meddling  with  the  heavy- 
garnered  wheat.  I  recall  an  inconspicuous  figure, 
of  ordinary  stature,  and  a  face  whose  marked 
feature  was  the  large  nose  (Emerson  called  it 
"corvine"),  but  that,  as  some  one  has  said,  is 
the  hook  which  nature  makes  salient  in  the  case 
of  men  whom  fortune  is  to  drag  forward  into 
leadership.  He  spoke  in  the  pulpit  of  my  grand- 
father, who  at  the  time  had  been  for  nearly  sixty 
years  minister  of  the  old  Pilgrim  parish.  From 
that  coign  of  vantage,  my  faithful  grandsire  had 


14  THe  Last  Leaf 

no  doubt  smoked  out  many  a  sinner,  and  had 
not  been  sparing  of  the  due  polemic  fulminations 
in  times  of  controversy.  The  old  theology,  too, 
had  undergone  at  his  hands  faithful  fumigation 
to  make  it  sanitary  for  the  modern  generations. 
From  one  kind  of  smoke,  however,  that  venerable 
pulpit  had  been  free  until  the  hour  of  Seward's 
arrival.  It  arched  my  eyebrows  well  when  I 
saw  him  at  the  end  of  his  address  light  a  cigar 
in  the  very  shrine,  a  burnt-offering,  in  my  good 
grandfather's  eyes  certainly,  more  fitting  for 
altars  satanic.  My  grandfather  promptly  called 
him  down,  great  man  though  he  was,  a  rub  which 
the  statesman  received  from  the  white-haired 
minister,  good-naturedly  postponing  his  smoke. 
But  Seward  rode  rough-shod  too  often  over  con- 
ventions, and  sometimes  over  real  proprieties. 
In  an  over-convivial  frame  once,  his  tongue, 
loosened  by  champagne,  nearly  wagged  us  into 
international  complications,  and  there  is  a  war- 
time anecdote,  wrhich  I  have  never  seen  in  print 
and  I  believe  is  unhackneyed,  wiiich  casts  a 
light.  A  general  of  the  army,  talking  with  Lin- 
coln and  the  Cabinet,  did  not  spare  his  oaths. 
"What  church  do  you  attend?"  interposed  the 
President  at  last,  stroking  his  chin  in  his  inno- 
cent way.  Confused  at  an  inquiry  so  foreign 
to  the  topic  under  discussion,  the  soldier  replied 
he  did  not  attend  much  of  any  church  himself, 
but  his  folks  were  Methodists.  "  How  odd !  "  said 
Lincoln,  "  I  thought  you  were  an  Episcopalian. 


William  H.  Seward  15 

You  swear  just  like  Seward,  and  Seward  is  an 
Episcopalian." 

But  I  should  be  sorry  to  believe  there  was 
any  trouble  with  Seward  but  a  surface  blemish. 
Though  in  '61  he  advocated  a  foreign  war  as  a 
means  for  bringing  together  North  and  South, 
and  desired  to  shelve  practically  Lincoln  while 
he  himself  stood  at  the  front  to  manage  the  tur- 
moil, he  made  no  more  mistakes  than  statesmen 
in  general.  He  had  been  powerful  for  good  be- 
fore the  war,  and  during  its  course,  with  what 
virile  stiffness  of  the  upper  lip  did  he  face  and 
foil  the  frowning  foreign  world!  He  had  the 
insight  and  candour  to  do  full  justice  at  last 
to  Lincoln,  whom  at  first  he  depreciated.  Then 
the  purchase  of  Alaska!  Writing  as  I  do  on 
the  western  coast  I  am  perhaps  affected  by  the 
glamour  of  that  marvellous  land.  When  news 
of  the  bargain  came  in  the  seventies,  the  scorners 
sang: 

"  Hear  it  all  ye  polar  bears, 
Waltz  around  the  pole  in  pairs. 
All  ye  icebergs  make  salaam, 
You  belong  to  Uncle  Sam. 
Lo,  upon  the  snow  too  plain 
Falls  his  dark  tobacco  stain." 

We  thought  that  very  funny  and  very  apt, — 
but  now!  I  am  glad  I  have  his  image  vivid, 
in  tliQ  pulpit  beside  my  grandfather  scratching 
a    match    for    a    too    careless    cigar.     Between 


16  The  Last  Leaf 

smokes  he  had  done,  and  was  still  to  do,  some 
fine  things. 

In  those  days,  Edward  Everett  and  Robert  C. 
Winthrop  were  often  under  my  immature  gaze. 
Men  much  alike  in  views,  endowments,  and 
accomplishments,  they  had  played  out  their  parts 
in  public  life  and  had  been  consigned  to  their 
Boston  shelf.  In  the  perspective  they  are  statu- 
ettes rather  than  statues,  of  Parian  spotless- 
ness,  ribboned  and  gilt-edged  through  an  elegant 
culture,  well  appointed  according  to  the  best 
taste,  companion  Sevres  pieces,  highly  orna- 
mental, and  effectually  shelved.  By  the  side  of 
the  robust  protagonists  of  those  stormy  years 
they  stand  as  figurines,  not  figures,  and  yet  it 
was  rather  through  their  fate  than  through 
their  fault  perhaps  that  they  are  what  they  are 
in  our  Pantheon.  They  were  not  at  all  with- 
out virile  quality.  Everett  bore  himself  well  in 
some  rough  Senatorial  debates,  and  Winthrop, 
as  Speaker  of  the  House  at  Washington,  was 
in  stormy  times  an  able  and  respected  officer. 
But  coarse  contacts  jarred  upon  their  refine- 
ment; and  when,  like  the  public  men  in  general 
who  saw  in  postponement  of  the  slavery  agita- 
tion the  wiser  course,  they  were  retired  from 
the  front,  it  is  easy  to  see  wiiy  the  world  judged 
them  as  it  did.  Everett's  son,  Mr.  Sidney 
Everett,  at  one  time  Assistant  Secretary  of 
State,  was  my  classmate,  and  honoured  me  once 


ELverett  and  WintHrop  17 

with  a  request  to  edit  his  father's  works.  I 
declined  the  task,  but  not  from  the  feeling  that 
the  task  was  not  worth  doing.  Everett  had  the 
idea  that  the  armed  rush  of  the  North  and  South 
against  each  other  might  be  stayed  even  at  the 
last,  by  reviving  in  them  the  veneration  for 
Washington,  a  sentiment  shared  by  both.  The 
delivery  of  his  oration  on  Washington  as  a 
means  to  that  end  was  well  meant,  but  pathetic 
in  its  complete  futility  to  accomplish  such  a  pur- 
pose. So  small  a  spill  of  oil  upon  a  sea  so 
raging!  He  was  a  master  of  beautiful  periods, 
and  I  desire  here  to  record  my  testimony  that 
he  also  possessed  a  power  for  off-hand  speech. 
The  tradition  is  that  his  utterances  were  all 
elaborately  studied,  down  to  the  gestures  and 
the  play  of  the  features.  I  have  heard  him  talk 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  starting  out  from 
an  incident  close  at  hand  and  touching  effectively 
upon  circumstances  that  arose  as  he  proceeded. 

Of  the  two  men,  often  seen  side  by  side,  so 
similar  in  tastes,  education,  and  character,  both 
for  the  same  cause  ostracised  from  public  life 
by  their  commonwealth,  a  repugnance  to  reform 
which  scouted  all  counting  of  costs,  Winthrop 
impressed  me  in  my  young  days  as  being  the 
abler.  His  public  career  closed  early,  but  he 
had  time  to  show  he  could  be  vigorous  and  finely 
eloquent.  I  remember  him  most  vividly  as  I 
saw  him  presiding  at  a  Commencement  dinner, 
a  function  which  he  discharged  with  extraor- 


1 8  The  Last  Leaf 

dinary  felicity.  He  had  an  alertness,  as  be 
stood  lithe  and  graceful,  derived  perhaps  from 
his  strain  of  Huguenot  blood.  His  wit  was  ex- 
celling, his  learning  comprehensive  and  well  in 
hand.  He  was  no  more  weighed  down  by  his 
erudition  than  was  David  by  his  sling.  En- 
comium, challenge,  repartee, — all  were  quick  and 
happy,  and  from  time  to  time  in  soberer  vein 
he  passed  over  without  shock  into  befitting  dig- 
nity. I  have  sat  at  many  a  banquet,  but  for 
me  that  ruling  of  the  feast  by  Winthrop  is  the 
masterpiece  in  that  kind.  He  lived  long  after 
retiring  from  politics,  the  main  stay  of  causes 
charitable,  educational,  and  for  civic  betterment. 
My  memory  is  enriched  by  the  image  of  him 
which  it  holds. 

Sixty  years  ago,  one  met,  under  the  elms  of 
the  streets  of  Cambridge,  two  men  who  plainly 
were  close  friends :  one  of  moderate  height,  well 
groomed  in  those  days  almost  to  the  point  of 
being  dapper,  very  courteous,  bowing  low  to 
every  student  he  met,  Henry  W.  Longfellow. 
Of  him  I  shall  have  something  to  say  later  on. 
The  other  was  a  man  of  unusual  stature  and 
stalwart  frame,  with  a  face  and  head  of  marked 
power.  His  rich  brown  hair  lay  in  heavy  locks ; 
the  features  were  patrician.  He  would  have 
been  handsome  but  for  an  hauteur  about  the  eyes 
not  quite  agreeable.  His  presence  was  com- 
manding, not  genial.     It  was  Charles  Sumner. 


CHarles  Sumner  19 

I  often  encountered  the  two  men  in  those  days, 
receiving  regularly  the  poet's  sunny  recognition 
and  the  statesman's  rather  unsympathetic  stare. 
Both  men  were  overwhelmingly  famous,  but, 
touched  simultaneously  by  warmth  and  frost, 
I,  a  shy  youngster,  could  keep  my  balance  in 
their  presence.  Sumner  in  those  years  was  the 
especial  bete  noire  of  the  South  and  the  con- 
servative North,  and  the  idol  of  the  radicals — 
at  once  the  most  banned  and  the  most  blessed 
of  men.  I  had,  besides,  a  personal  reason  for 
looking  upon  him  with  interest.  He  was  a  man 
with  whom  my  father  had  once  had  a  sharp 
difference,  and  I  wondered,  as  I  watched  the 
stride  of  the  stately  Senator  down  the  street, 
if  he  remembered,  as  my  father  did,  that  dif- 
ference of  twenty-five  years  before. 

My  father,  in  the  late  twenties  a  divinity 
student  at  Harvard,  was  a  proctor,  living  in  an 
entry  of  Stoughton  Hall,  for  the  good  order  of 
which  he  was  expected  to  care.  The  only  man 
he  ever  reported  was  Charles  Sumner,  and  this 
was  my  father's  story. 

Sumner,  an  undergraduate,  though  still  a  boy, 
had  nearly  attained  his  full  stature  and  weight. 
He  was  athletic  in  his  tastes,  and  given  to  riding 
the  velocipede  of  those  days,  a  heavy,  bone- 
breaking  machine,  moved  not  by  pedals  but  by 
thrusting  the  feet  against  the  ground.  This 
Sumner  kept  in  his  room,  carrying  it  painfully 
up  the  stairs,  and  practised  on  it  with  the  re- 


20  THe  Last  Leaf 

suit,  his  size  and  energy  being  so  unusual,  that 
the  building,  solid  as  it  was,  was  fairly  shaken, 
to  the  detriment  of  plaster  and  woodwork,  and 
the  complete  wreck  of  the  proper  quiet  of  the 
place.  My  father  remonstrated  mildly,  but  with- 
out effect.  A  second  more  emphatic  remon- 
strance was  still  without  effect,  whereupon  came 
an  ultimatum.  If  the  disturbance  continued, 
the  offender  would  be  reported  to  the  college 
authorities. 

The  bone-breaker  crashed  on  and  the  stroke 
fell.  Sumner  was  called  up  before  President 
Kirkland  and  received  a  reprimand.  He  came 
from  the  faculty-room  to  the  proctor's  apart- 
ment in  a  very  boyish  fit  of  tears,  complaining 
between  sobs  that  he  was  the  victim  of  in- 
justice, and  upbraiding  the  proctor.  My  father 
was  short  with  him;  he  had  brought  it  upon 
himself,  the  penalty  was  only  reasonable,  and 
it  would  be  manly  for  him  to  take  it  good- 
naturedly.  Long  afterward,  when  Sumner  rose 
into  great  fame,  my  father  remembered  the 
incident  perhaps  too  vividly. 

My  curiosity  as  to  wh  ether  Mr.  Sumner  had 
any  rankling  in  his  heart  from  that  old  dif- 
ference was  at  length  gratified.  The  years 
passed,  the  assault  in  the  Senate  Chamber  by 
Brooks  roused  the  whole  country;  then  came  the 
time  of  slow  recovery.  Sumner  had  come  back 
from  the  hands  of  Dr.  Brown-Sequard  at  Paris 
to  Boston,  and  was  mustering  strength  to  re- 


CHarles  Sumner  21 

sume  his  great  place.  Calling  one  day  on  a 
friend  in  Somerset  Street,  I  found  a  visitor  in 
the  parlour,  a  powerful  man  weighed  down  by 
physical  disability,  whom  I  recognised  as  the 
sufferer  whose  name  at  the  moment  was  upper- 
most in  millions  of  hearts. 

As  he  heard  my  name  in  the  introduction 
which  followed  my  entrance,  he  said  quickly, 
while  shaking  my  hand,  "  I  wonder  if  you  are 
the  son  of  the  man  who  reported  me  in  col- 
lege." The  tone  was  not  quite  genial.  The  old 
difference  was  not  quite  effaced.  I  told  him  as 
sturdily  as  I  could  that  I  was  the  son  of  his 
old  proctor  and  that  I  had  often  heard  my 
father  tell  the  story.  He  said  plainly  he  thought 
it  unnecessary  and  unfair,  and  that  that  was 
the  only  time  since  his  childhood  when  he  had 
received  a  formal  censure.  Long  after,  he  re- 
ceived censure  from  the  Massachusetts  Legisla- 
ture for  an  act  greatly  to  his  credit,  the  sug- 
gestion that  the  captured  battle-flags  should  be 
returned  to  the  Southern  regiments  from  which 
they  had  been  taken. 

But  it  was  only  a  momentary  flash.  He  settled 
back  into  the  easy-chair  with  invalid  languor, 
and  began  to  tell  me  good-naturedly  about  his 
old  velocipede,  describing  its  construction,  and 
the  feats  he  had  been  able  to  perform  on  it, 
clumsy  though  it  was.  He  could  keep  up  with 
a  fast  horse  in  riding  into  Boston,  but  at  the 
cost  of  a  good  pair  of  shoes.     The  contrivance 


22  THe  Last  Leaf 

supported  the  weight  of  the  body,  which  rolled 
forward  on  the  wheels,  leaving  the  legs  free  to 
speed  the  machine  by  alternate  rapid  kicks. 
From  that  he  branched  off  into  college  athletics 
of  his  day  in  a  pleasant  fashion,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  not  short  interview  I  felt  I  had  enjoyed 
a  great  privilege. 

Another  contact  with  Charles  Sumner  was  a 
rather  memorable  one.  We  were  in  the  second 
year  of  the  Civil  War.  He  was  in  his  high 
place,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Affairs  in  the  Senate,  a  main  pillar  of  the 
Northern  cause.  I  meantime  had  been  or- 
dained as  minister  of  a  parish  in  the  Connecti- 
cut valley,  and  was  a  zealous  upholder  of  the 
cause  of  the  Union.  John  A.  Andrew  was  Gov- 
ernor of  Massachusetts.  I  had  come  to  know 
him  through  having  preached  in  the  church  at 
Hingham  with  which  he  was  connected.  He  was 
superintendent  of  the  Sunday-school,  and  had 
introduced  me  once  for  an  address  to  his  charge. 
We  were  theologically  in  sympathy,  but  for  me 
it  was  a  closer  bond  that  he  was  the  great  war 
Governor. 

At  an  Amherst  commencement  we  had  talked 
about  recruiting  in  the  Connecticut  valley,  and 
he  had  impressed  me  much.  Short  in  stature, 
square,  well-set  in  frame,  he  had  a  strong  head 
and  face.  His  colour  was  white  and  pink  al- 
most like  that  of  a  boy,  and  the  resolute  blue 
eyes  looked  out  from  under  an  abundant  mat 


JoHn  A..  Andrew  23 

of  light  curling  hair  that  confirmed  the  impres- 
sion he  made  of  youth.  Not  many  months  be- 
fore, he  had  been  the  target  of  much  ridicule, 
being  held  over-anxious  about  a  coming  storm. 
He  had  bought  three  thousand  overcoats  for  the 
militia,  and  otherwise  busied  himself  to  have 
soldiers  ready.  He  was  "  our  merry  Andrew." 
But  the  Massachusetts  Sixth  had  been  first  on 
the  ground  at  Washington,  with  many  more 
close  behind,  and  the  Governor  had  had  splendid 
vindication. 

Early  in  September,  1862,  I  went  to  Boston 
with  a  deputation  of  selectmen  from  four  towns 
of  the  Connecticut  valley.  They  had  an  errand, 
and  my  function  was,  as  an  acquaintance  of  the 
Governor,  to  introduce  them.  Little  we  knew  of 
what  had  just  happened  in  Virginia,  the  dread- 
ful second  Bull  Run  campaign,  with  the  driving 
in  upon  Washington  of  the  routed  Pope,  and  the 
pending  invasion  of  Maryland.  The  despatches, 
while  not  concealing  disappointment,  told  an 
over-flattering  tale.  More  troops  were  wanted 
for  a  speedy  finishing  of  the  war,  which  we 
fondly  believed  was,  in  spite  of  all,  nearing  its 
end.  Our  errand  was  to  ask  that  in  a  regiment 
about  to  be  raised  in  two  western  counties  the 
men  might  have  the  privilege  of  electing  the 
officers,  a  pernicious  practice  which  had  been 
in  vogue,  and  always  done  much  harm.  But  in 
those  days  our  eyes  were  not  open. 

Entering  the  Governor's  room  in   the  State 


24  The  Last  Leaf 

House  with  my  farmer  selectmen,  I  found  it 
densely  thronged.  Among  the  civilians  were 
many  uniforms,  and  men  of  note  in  the  field  and 
out  stood  there  in  waiting.  Charles  Sumner 
presently  entered  the  room,  dominating  the  com- 
pany by  his  commanding  presence,  that  day 
apparently  in  full  vigour,  alert,  forceful,  with 
a  step  before  which  the  crowd  gave  way,  his  mas- 
terfulness fully  recognised  and  acknowledged. 
He  took  his  seat  with  the  air  of  a  prince  of 
the  blood  at  the  table,  close  at  hand  to  the  Chief 
Magistrate. 

Naturally  abashed,  but  feeling  I  was  in  for 
a  task  which  must  be  pushed  through,  I  made 
my  way  to  the  other  elbow  of  the  Governor,  who, 
looking  up  from  his  documents,  recognised  me 
politely  and  asked  what  I  wanted.  I  stated  our 
case,  that  a  deputation  from  Franklin  and 
Hampshire  counties  desired  the  privilege  for  the 
men  of  the  new  regiment  about  to  be  raised  to 
elect  their  own  officers,  and  not  be  commanded 
by  men  whom  they  did  not  know. 

"Where  are  your  selectmen?"  said  Governor 
Andrew,  rising  and  pushing  back  his  chair  with 
an  energy  which  I  thought  ominous.  My  com- 
panions had  taken  up  a  modest  position  in  a 
far  corner.  When  I  pointed  them  out,  the  Gov- 
ernor made  no  pause,  but  proceeded  to  pour  upon 
them  and  me  a  torrent  of  impassioned  words. 
He  said  that  we  were  making  trouble,  that  the 
country  was  in  peril,  and  that  while  he  was 


John  A.  Andrew  25 

trying  to  send  every  available  man  to  the  front 
in  condition  to  do  effective  work  he  was  em- 
barrassed at  home  by  petty  interference  with 
his  efforts.  "  I  have  at  hand  soldiers  who  have 
proved  themselves  brave  in  action,  have  been 
baptised  in  blood  and  fire.  They  are  fit  through 
character  and  experience  to  be  leaders,  and  yet 
I  cannot  give  them  commissions  because  I  am 
blocked  by  this  small  and  unworthy  spirit  of 
hindrance." 

For  some  minutes  the  warm  outburst  went  on. 
The  white,  beardless  face  flushed  up  under  the 
curls,  and  his  hands  waved  in  rapid  gesture. 
"  A  capital  speech,  your  Excellency,"  cried  out 
Sumner,  "  a  most  capital  speech ! "  and  he  led 
the  way  in  a  peal  of  applause  in  which  the  crowd 
in  the  chamber  universally  joined,  and  which 
must  have  rung  across  Beacon  Street  to  the 
Common  far  away.  My  feeble  finger  had 
touched  the  button  which  brought  this  unex- 
pected downpour,  and  for  the  moment  I  was 
unpleasantly  in  the  limelight. 

"  Now  introduce  me  to  your  selectmen,"  said 
Governor  Andrew,  stepping  to  my  side.  I  led 
the  way  to  the  corner  to  which  the  delega- 
tion had  retreated,  and  presented  my  friends  in 
turn.  His  manner  changed.  He  was  polite  and 
friendly,  and  when,  after  a  hand-shaking,  he 
went  back  to  his  table,  we  felt  we  had  not  under- 
stood the  situation  and  that  our  petition  should 
have  been  withheld.     For  my  part,  I  enlisted  at 


26  THe  Last  Leaf 

once  as  a  private  and  went  into  a  strenuous 
campaign. 

Sumner  was  intrepid,  high-purposed,  and  ac- 
complished, but  what  is  the  world  saying  now 
of  his  judgment?  His  recent  friendly  but  dis- 
criminating biographer,  Prof.  George  H.  Haynes, 
declares  that  even  in  matters  of  taste  he  was  at 
fault.  The  paintings  he  thought  masterpieces, 
his  gift  to  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  are 
for  the  most  part  consigned  to  the  lumber-room. 
In  sculpture  his  judgment  was  not  better.  As 
to  literary  art,  his  writing  was  ponderous  and 
over-weighted  with  far-fetched  allusion.  The 
world  felt  horror  at  the  attack  of  Brooks,  but 
the  whole  literature  of  invective  contains  nothing 
more  offensive  than  the  language  of  Sumner 
which  provoked  it  and  which  he  lavished  right 
and  left  upon  opponents  who  were  sometimes 
honourable.     It  was  in  the  worst  of  taste. 

In  great  affairs  his  service  was  certainly 
large.  Perhaps  he  was  at  his  highest  in  the 
settlement  of  the  Trent  affair,  but  his  course 
in  general  in  guiding  our  foreign  relations  was 
able  and  useful.  He  put  his  hand  to  much  re- 
construction of  ideas  and  institutions.  Often  he 
made,  but  too  often  he  marred.  He  suffered 
sadly  from  the  lack  of  a  sense  of  humour. 
"  What  does  Lincoln  mean?  "  he  would  blankly 
exclaim,  impervious  alike  to  the  drollery  and  to 
the  keen  prod  concealed  within  it.  In  his  fan- 
cied  superiority   he   sought    to    patronise    and 


Charles  Sumner  27 

dominate  the  rude  Illinoisian.  The  case  is 
pathetic.  The  width  and  the  depth  of  the 
chasm  which  separates  the  two  men  in  the 
regard  of  the  American  people! 


CHAPTER  II 

SOLDIERS  I   HAVE   MET 

IN  speaking  of  soldiers  I  shall  do  better  to  pay 
slight  attention  to  the  men  of  chief  import- 
ance; for  them  the  trumpets  have  sounded 
sufficiently  and  I  came  into  personal  contact 
with  only  one  or  two.  Grant,  I  saw  once,  after 
he  was  Lieutenant-General,  on  the  platform  of 
a  -railroad  station  submitting  stoically  to  the 
compliments  of  a  lively  crowd  of  women.  Once 
again  I  saw  him,  in  academic  surroundings, 
sturdy  and  impassive,  an  incongruous  element 
among  the  caps  and  gowns;  but  it  was  among 
such  men  that  he  won  what  is  to  my  mind 
one  of  his  greatest  victories.  What  triumph  of 
Grant's  was  greater  than  his  subjugation  of 
Matthew  Arnold!  I  rode  once  on  the  railroad- 
train  for  some  hours  immediately  behind  Sheri- 
dan, and  had  a  good  chance  to  study  the  sinewy 
little  man  in  his  trim  uniform  which  showed 
every  movement  of  his  muscles.  Though  the 
ride  was  hot  and  monotonous  I  was  impressed 
with  his  vitality.  He  seemed  to  have  eyes  all 
around  his  head.     The  man  was  in  repose,  but 

28 


Sheridan  and  Meade  29 

it  was  the  repose  of  a  leopard ;  at  a  sudden  call, 
every  fibre  would  evidently  become  tense,  the 
servant  of  a  nimble  brain,  and  an  instant  pounce 
upon  any  opposition  could  be  depended  upon. 
What  a  pity,  I  found  myself  thinking,  that  the 
fellow  has  no  longer  a  chance  for  his  live  energy 
(the  war  Was  then  well  over),  and  I  had  to 
check  an  incipient  wish  that  a  turmoil  might 
arise  that  would  again  give  a  proper  scope  to 
his  soldierly  force.  Happily  there  was  no  longer 
need  for  such  service,  but  I  feel  that  Sheridan 
was  really  more  than  a  good  sword.  One  finds 
in  his  memoirs  unexpected  outbursts  of  fancy 
and  high  sentiment,  and  he  could  admire  the 
fine  heroism  of  a  character  like  Charles  Russell 
Lowell.  It  is  fair  to  judge  a  man  by  what  he 
admires. 

At  the  Harvard  commemoration  of  1865, 
standing  under  the  archway  at  the  northern 
end  of  Gore  Hall,  I  encountered  the  thin, 
plainly  clad  figure  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 
I  was  in  soldier's  dress  and  as  he  gave  me  a 
nod  of  recognition  he  said,  looking  at  my 
chevrons,  very  simply  but  with  feeling,  "  This 
day  belongs  to  you."  Passing  around  then  to  the 
west  front,  I  had  before  me  a  contrast  in  a  bril- 
liant group  marshalled  by  my  friend  and  class- 
mate Colonel  Theodore  Lyman,  in  the  centre 
of  which  rose  the  stately  figure  in  full  uniform 
of  Major-General  Meade.  "  Ah,  Jimmy,"  said 
Theodore  with  the  aggressive  geniality  which  his 


30  THe  Last  Leaf 

old  associates  so  well  remember,  "  come  right 
here,"  and  catching  me  by  the  arm  he  pulled 
the  corporal  into  the  immediate  presence  of  the 
victor  of  Gettysburg.  "  This  is  Corporal  Hos- 
mer,"  said  he,  "  and  this,  Jimmy,  is  Major- 
General  Meade/'  introducing  us  with  much 
friendly  patting  of  my  shoulder  and  a  handling 
of  the  Major-General  almost  equally  familiar. 
He  had  long  been  a  trusted  member  of  Meade's 
staff  but  the  war  was  over  and  a  close  friendship 
held  them  on  common  ground.  "  He  has  written 
a  book,  General,  about  the  war."  Then  came  a 
word  of  commendation  and  the  tall  General,  as 
he  gave  my  hand  a  cordial  pressure,  beamed 
down  upon  me  with  pleasant  eyes.  In  the 
peaceful  time  that  had  come,  we  were  all  citi- 
zens together;  the  private  and  the  General  were 
on  a  level,  though  that  aquiline  face  had  been 
called  upon  not  long  before  to  confront,  at  the 
head  of  one  hundred  thousand  men,  the  hosts 
of  Lee.  • 

Of  our  other  great  commanders  I  never  saw 
Thomas,  but  my  knowledge  of  Sherman  was 
something  more  than  the  mere  glimpse  I -had 
of  the  figures  of  his  compeers.  His  home  was 
in  St.  Louis,  in  which  city  I  was  then  residing, 
and  he  was  much  in  society.  He  was  really  a 
Connecticut  Yankee  though  transplanted  to 
Ohio,  and  he  was,  in  figure  and  character, 
thoroughly  a  New  Englander.  He  was  tall  and 
slender,   his   prominent  forehead  standing  out 


William  T.  Sherman  31 

from  light  straight  hair,  a  stubby  beard  veiling 
a  well-pronounced  and  well- worked  jaw  (for  he 
was  one  of  the  readiest  of  talkers),  it  would 
require  little  scratching  to  get  to  the  uncon- 
taminated  Yankee  underneath.  A  New  Eng- 
lander  of  the  best  type,  shrewd,  kindly,  deeply 
concerned  for  the  welfare  of  his  country  and 
of  men.  A  fashionable  lady  invited  him  to  dine 
without  his  wife.  Sherman,  on  arriving,  found 
other  ladies  present;  to  his  hostess,  who  came 
forward  to  receive  him  with  effusion,  he  said: 
"  Madam,  I  dine  with  Mrs.  Sherman  to-night," 
and  the  party  went  forward  without  the  lion 
who  was  to  have  given  it  distinction.  He  would 
not  have  his  wife  slighted;  nor  in  more  import- 
ant things  would  he  endure  to  see  a  lame  out- 
come when  he  might  set  things  in  better  shape. 
He  encouraged  schools  and  worthy  charities  by 
giving  them  his  hearty  countenance.  No  arm 
was  more  potent  than  his  in  saving  the  country, 
nor  was  his  patriotism  selfish.  He  saved  his 
country  because  he  believed  it  was  for  the  good 
of  the  world. 

Sherman  has  been  criticised  for  his  ruthless- 
ness,  but  no  one  can  say  that  he  was  not  effective. 
He  bore  on  hard  but  with  the  belief  that  only 
such  action  could  bring  the  war  to  a  close.  No 
one  could  come  in  contact  with  him  without 
feeling  that  he  was  a  soft-hearted  man.  It  was 
one  of  the  most  interesting  evenings  of  my  life 
when,  as  a  guest  of  N.  O.  Nelson,  the  philan- 


32  The  Last  Leaf 

thropic  captain  of  industry  in  St,  Louis,  I  was 
one  of  a  company  of  a  dozen  to  hear  Sherman 
tell  John  Fiske  his  story  of  the  war.  We  sat 
at  table  from  seven  o'clock  until  midnight,  the 
two  illustrious  figures  with  their  heads  together 
exchanging  a  rapid  fire  of  question  and  answer, 
but  the  rest  of  us  were  by  no  means  silent. 
Sherman  was  full  of  affability  and  took  good- 
naturedly  the  sharp  inquiries.  "  How  was  it, 
General,  at  Shiloh ;  was  not  your  line  quite  too 
unguarded  on  the  Corinth  side,  and  was  not  the 
coming  on  of  Sidney  Johnston  a  bad  surprise 
for  you?  "  "  Oh,  later  in  the  war,"  said  Sher- 
man, "  we  no  doubt  should  have  done  differently, 
but  we  got  ready  for  them  as  they  came  on." 
"Was  there  not  bad  demoralisation,"  I  said, 
"  ten  thousand  or  more  skulkers  huddled  under 
the  bluff  on  the  Tennessee?  "  "  Oh,"  said  Sher- 
man, "  the  rear  of  an  army  in  battle  is  always 
a  sorry  place;  but  on  the  firing  line,  where  I 
was,  things  did  not  look  so  bad." — "  Your  ad- 
versaries, General,  were  often  good  fellows,  were 
they  not,  and  you  are  good  friends  now? " 
"  The  best  fellows  in  the  world,"  said  Sherman, 
"  and  as  to  friendship,  Hood  wants  me  to  be 
his  literary  executor  and  take  care  of  his 
memoirs." 

He  was  ready  to  confess  to  mistakes,  and  with 
frank  and  proper  exultation  pointed  out  the 
gradual  improvement  and  the  triumphant  result. 
Plenty  of  good  stories  and  much  hearty  laughter 


"William  T.  Sherman  33 

came  in  among  the  more  tragic  episodes.  We  saw 
John  Fiske  take  it  all  in,  swaying  in  his  chair 
ponderously  back  and  forth,  but  the  War  in  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  which  came  out  soon  after, 
showed  that  his  memory  retained  every  point. 
On  another  occasion,  as  Sherman  on  a  stormy 
night  took  me  home  in  his  carriage,  we  skirted 
the  blocks  which  had  been  the  site  of  Camp  Jack- 
son, the  first  field  of  the  Civil  War  that  Sherman 
had  witnessed.  That  was  the  beginning  of 
things  in  the  WTest,  and  he  on  that  day  only  a 
bystander.  He  was  at  the  time  possibly  irreso- 
lute as  to  what  he  should  do,  and  he  certainly 
had  no  premonition  of  the  large  part  he  was 
destined  to  play.  As  he  looked  out  of  the  win- 
dow that  night  into  the  driving  storm  on  the 
spot  where  once  he  had  brooded  so  anxiously, 
I  wondered  if  he  had  any  memory  of  the  soul 
struggle  of  that  crisis. 

After  his  death,  there  took  place  in  the  streets 
of  St.  Louis  an  imposing  military  funeral.  As 
the  cortege  paused  for  a  moment,  I  stood  at  the 
side  of  the  gun-carriage  which  bore  the  coffin 
wrapped  in  the  flag,  and  paid  my  tribute  to  this 
good  man  and  great  citizen  who  had  played  his 
part  well. 

A  controversy,  which  has  now  died  away,  used 
to  be  waged  during  and  soon  after  the  Civil 
War  as  to  whether  West  Point  had  really  vin- 
dicated a  place  for  itself.  Many  an  American, 
full   of   that   over-confidence   which   besets   us, 


34  THe  Last  Leaf 

maintained  that  a  man  could  become  a  good 
soldier  by  a  turn  of  the  hand  as  it  were.  Given 
courage,  physical  vigour,  and  fair  practical  ap- 
titude, a  lawyer,  a  merchant,  or  a  civil  engineer 
could  take  sword  in  hand  and  at  short  notice 
head  a  squadron  or  muster  an  army.  This  view 
has  so  far  as  I  know  been  set  forward  by  no 
one  more  plausibly  than  by  Jacob  D.  Cox,  a  stout 
civilian  soldier  who  led  well  the  Twenty-third 
Corps  and  later  became  Governor  of  Ohio  and 
a  successful  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  I  once 
met  General  Cox  in  an  interesting  way,  on  a 
Sunday  afternoon,  at  the  home  of  Judge  Alfonso 
Taft  at  Walnut  Hills,  a  pleasant  suburb  of 
Cincinnati.  Judge  Taft  in  those  days  was  a 
somewhat  noteworthy  figure.  He  had  served 
the  country  well  as  Minister  to  Russia  and  also 
as  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  at  Washington,  and 
was  one  of  the  foremost  men  of  the  fair  city 
where  he  lived.  His  sister-in-law  married  an 
intimate  friend  of  mine,  and  there  were  other 
reasons  which  gave  me  some  title  to  his  notice, 
and  I  was  for  the  time  his  guest.  A  sturdy 
white-haired  boy  of  ten  or  so  sat  at  the  table 
at  dinner  and  hung  with  his  brothers  about  the 
group  of  elders  as  they  talked  in  the  afternoon. 
This  boy  was  William  H.  Taft  taking  in  the 
scraps  of  talk  as  the  chatting  progressed  on  his 
father's  porch.  General  Cox  dropped  in  for  an 
afternoon  call  and  I  scanned  eagerly  his  scholarly 
face  and  figure,  well  knit  through  the  harshest 


Jacob  D.  Cox  35 

experiences  in  camp  and  battle.  He  was  a  man 
of  fine  tastes  and  well  accomplished  both  in 
science  and  literature  with  a  substratum  of 
manly  tenacity  and  good  sense,  who  did  noble 
duty  on  many  a  field  and  produced  in  his 
Military  Reminiscences  one  of  our  most  satis- 
factory books  on  the  Civil  War  period.  The 
manner  of  the  veteran  was  simple  and  pleasant. 
Nothing  betrayed  that  he  had  been  the  hero  in 
such  an  eventful  past.  I  have  of  course  no 
thought  of  sketching  his  career  or  criticising 
his  account  of  it.  As  to  the  point  to  which  I 
have  referred,  his  claim  that  a  peaceful  Ameri- 
can can  be  turned  into  a  soldier  off-hand  and 
that  the  West  Pointers  no  more  made  good  in 
the  war  than  did  the  civilians,  he  sets  forth  the 
case  calmly.  He  takes  the  curriculum  at  West 
Point  as  it  was  sixty  years  ago  and  plainly 
shows  that  as  regards  acquirements  in  general 
it  bears  a  poor  comparison  with  that  of  civilian 
universities  and  colleges  of  that  period.  As 
to  especial  military  education,  he  claims  that 
the  instruction  at  West  Point  was  comparatively 
trifling;  the  cadets  were  well  drilled  only  in  the 
elements,  while  as  regards  the  larger  matters 
of  strategy  and  the  management  of  armies  there 
was  slight  opportunity  to  learn.  The  cadet 
came  out  qualified  to  drill  a  company  or  at 
most  a  regiment,  while  as  to  manoeuvring  of 
divisions  and  corps  he  had  no  chance  to  perfect 
himself.     The  cadet,  moreover,  had  this  handi- 


36  THe  Last  Leaf 

cap — lie  had  been  made  the  slave  of  routine  and 
his  natural  enterprise  had  been  so  far  repressed 
that  he  magnified  petty  details  and  precedents 
and  was  slow  to  adapt  himself  to  an  unlooked-for 
emergency.  He  cites  an  example  where  he  him- 
self was  set  to  fight  a  battle  by  a  West  Point 
superior  with  old-fashioned  muzzle-loading  guns, 
the  improved  arms  which  were  at  hand  and 
which  might  easily  have  been  used  with  good 
effect  remaining  in  the  rear.  His  conclusion  is 
that  a  wide-awake  American  trained  in  the 
hustle  of  daily  life,  with  a  good  basis  of  common 
sense  and  some  capacity  for  adaptation,  could, 
with  a  few  months'  experience,  undertake  to  good 
advantage  the  direction  of  soldiers,  and  that  the 
West  Point  preceding  1861  had  an  influence 
rather  nugatory  in  bringing  about  success.  It 
is  perhaps  sufficient  answer  to  arguments  of  this 
kind  that  while  during  our  Civil  War  there  was 
a  most  relentless  sifting  of  men  for  high  posi- 
tions, little  regard  being  paid  to  the  education  and 
antecedents  of  those  submitted  to  it,  the  men 
who  finally  emerged  at  the  front  were  almost 
exclusively  West  Pointers.  Grant,  Sherman, 
Sheridan,  and  Thomas,  the  Union  champions  par 
excellence,  were  West  Pointers.  Lee,  Stonewall 
Jackson,  the  Johnstons,  and  Longstreet  are  no 
less  conspicuous  among  the  Confederates.  Civil- 
ians for  the  most  part  were  not  found  in  the 
high  places,  or  if  they  were  so  placed  the  results 
were   unfortunate,   as   in   the  cases   of   Butler, 


Nathaniel  P.  BanKs  37 

Banks,  and  McOlernand.  There  were  of  course 
good  soldiers  who  came  from  civil  life.  Cox 
himself  is  a  conspicuous  instance,  and  there  were 
Terry,  John  A.  Logan,  and  other  good  division 
commanders.  On  the  Southern  side  may  be  in- 
stanced N.  B.  Forrest  and  J.  B.  Gordon;  but 
these  men  rarely  attained  to  more  than  second- 
ary positions,  the  highest  places  falling,  as  if 
by  gravitation,  into  the  hands  of  West  Pointers. 
An  influence  there  was  in  the  little  academy  on 
the  Hudson  which  somehow  brought  to  pass  a 
superior  warlike  efficiency.  The  training  at 
West  Point,  supplemented  as  it  usually  was  by 
campaigning  on  the  plains,  although  duty  was 
done  only  by  men  in  squads,  and  the  hardships 
and  perils  were  scarcely  greater  than  those  en- 
countered by  the  ordinary  pioneer  and  rail- 
road-builder, somehow  evoked  the  field-marshal 
quality  and  made  it  easier  to  grapple  with  the 
tremendous  problems  with  which  the  army  was 
so  suddenly  confronted. 

A  certain  pathos  attaches  to  the  story  of  some 
of  those  civilian  soldiers.  In  my  youthful  days, 
I  had  often  seen  1ST.  P.  Banks,  who  had  risen 
from  the  humblest  beginning  into  much  political 
importance.  No  large  distinction  can  be  claimed 
for  him  in  any  direction,  and  for  elevation  of 
character  he  was  certainly  not  marked;  but  he 
was  a  man  of  respectable  ability  and  he  climbed 
creditably  from  factory-boy  to  mechanic  and 
thence  (through  no  noisome  paths)  to  Congress, 


38  The  Last  Leaf 

to  the  post  of  Governor,  and  to  the  Speakership 
at  Washington. 

He  had  military  ambition  and  with  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war  went  at  once  into  the  army^ 
unfortunately  for  him,  as  major-general  and 
commander  of  a  department.  Could  he  have  gone 
in  as  captain  or  colonel,  his  fortune  would 
probably  have  been  different.  But,  sent  to  com- 
mand in  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  it  was  his  fate 
to  meet  at  the  outset  the  most  formidable  of 
adversaries,  Stonewall  Jackson.  He  was  sorely 
hoodwinked  and  humiliated,  but  so  were  several 
of  his  successors.  At  Cedar  Mountain,  under- 
standing that  his  orders  were  peremptory,  he 
threw  his  corps  upon  double  their  numbers  and 
fought  with  all  the  bravery  in  the  world  though 
with  defective  tactics.  Another  corps  should 
have  been  at  hand,  but  it  failed  to  arrive.  There 
was  a  moment  when  Banks,  weak  though  he 
was,  was  near  to  victory,  but  lie  failed  in  the 
end  in  an  impossible  task  and  was  made  scape- 
goat for  the  blunders  of  others.  He  was  sent 
to  supersede  Butler  in  Louisiana  with  a  force 
quite  inadequate  for  the  duty  expected.  It  was 
here  that  I  came  into  contact  with  him.  In- 
terested friends  had  laid  my  case  before  him,  as 
one  who  might  serve  well  in  a  higher  position 
than  that  of  a  private,  and  he  good-naturedly 
sent  word  to  me  to  report  to  him  at  a  certain  hour 
in  the  rotunda  of  the  St.  Charles  Hotel  at  New 
Orleans.     The  city  was  in  the  firm  grasp  of  the 


Nathaniel  P.  BanKs  39 

Union,  as  our  transport  had  sailed  up  the  even- 
ing before.  The  ships  of  Farragut,  their  decks 
crowded  with  blue  jackets  held  under  their 
broad-sides  a  dense  and  sullen  multitude.  A 
heavy  salute  reverberated  from  the  river  as  the 
new  commander  took  his  place,  but  conditions 
were  precarious. 

As  I  walked  up  the  street  in  my  soldier's  dress, 
a  handsome  Southern  girl  almost  ran  me  off  the 
sidewalk  with  a  look  in  her  face  which,  but  for 
fear  of  the  calaboose,  might  have  been  backed 
up  by  words  and  acts  of  insult,  while  the  faces 
of  the  men  were  full  of  hate.  I  stood  at  last 
in  the  rotunda  of  the  St.  Charles  Hotel  and 
presently  the  commander-in-chief,  threading  his 
way  through  a  throng  of  officers,  was  at  my  side. 
I  was  much  dishevelled  and  still  ill  after  a 
stormy  passage  in  a  crowded  ship,  but  the  Gen- 
eral was  very  courteous  to  the  private.  He  had 
heard  of  my  enlistment  and  indicated  that  he 
would  be  glad  to  utilise  me,  as  he  desired  to 
utilise  every  man,  for  the  best  welfare  of  the 
service.  What  did  I  desire?  I  told  him  I  had 
no  thought  but  to  do  my  duty  as  well  as  I  could 
wherever  I  might  be  put.  He  discussed  the 
situation  reasonably,  then  offered  me  a  clerkship 
at  headquarters,  where  I  might  escape  the  chief 
perils  of  the  campaign  and  where  perhaps  my 
education  would  serve  the  public.  For  a  mo- 
ment I  hesitated  and  he  passed  on,  leaving  me 
to  decide.     My  friends  felt  that  I  had  not  the 


40  The  Last  Leaf 

physical  strength  for  work  in  the  field;  should 
I  accept  the  snug  place  back  of  the  firing-line 
or  risk  it  at  the  front?  By  the  next  day,  I  had 
fully  determined  to  stick  to  my  regiment,  I 
sought  the  General  again  at  headquarters. 
Colonel  Irwin  of  his  staff  at  the  moment  was 
arranging  around  his  shoulders  the  yellow  sash 
of  the  major-general  for  the  formal  ceremony 
of  taking  command,  which  was  close  at  hand. 
But  the  General  had  a  kindly  recognition  of  the 
private,  assented  to  my  decision,  and  gave  me  a 
pass  to  the  regiment,  which  had  already  been 
hurried  onward  to  the  front.  I  laid  my  knap- 
sack down  by  the  side  of  that  of  my  young 
brother  in  the  camp,  which  was  then  at  the  front. 
Banks  was  a  kindly  man  who  meant  and  did 
the  best  he  could  for  the  humblest  soldier  in 
his  army.  His  further  military  career  I  can 
only  briefly  sketch.  He  planned  two  fierce  and 
calamitous  assaults  upon  Port  Hudson ;  errors  no 
doubt,  but  Grant  and  Lee  at  the  moment  were 
making  just  such  errors.  The  Red  River  cam- 
paign was  a  disastrous  failure,  but  Banks  had 
every  handicap  which  a  general  could  suffer :  an 
insufficient  force,  a  demand  from  the  Adminis- 
tration that  he  should  attend  to  a  civil  reorder- 
ing when  only  fighting  was  in  place,  subordinates 
insolent  and  disobedient.  And  finally  nature 
herself  took  arms  against  him,  for  the  Red 
River  fell  when,  by  all  precedents,  it  should 
have   risen.     It   was   an   enterprise   which    his 


Benjamin  F.  B\itler  41 

judgment  utterly  disapproved,  the  difficulties 
of  which  he  faced  with  good  resolution.  It 
ended  his  career,  for  though  once  at  a  later 
time  he  went  to  Congress,  he  ever  afterwards 
stood  a  discredited  figure,  dying,  as  I  have  heard, 
poor  and  broken-hearted  in  obscurity.  His  State 
has  tried  to  render  him  a  late  justice  by  setting 
him  up  in  bronze  on  Beacon  Hill.  It  was  done 
through  opposition  and  the  statue  is  sneered  at 
more  often  than  admired.  He  was  an  able  man 
I  believe  and  meant  well,  and  I  for  one  find  it 
pathetic  that  the  lines  of  my  old  commander 
did  not  fall  more  pleasantly. 

Butler,  on  the  other  hand,  I  do  not  regard  as 
a  pathetic  figure.  On  the  night  of  my  arrival 
in  New  Orleans,  strolling  about  the  strange  city, 
I  found  myself  at  headquarters,  and  a  Massa- 
chusetts boy  standing  sentry  on  the  porch  in 
a  spirit  of  comradeship  invited  me  up.  As  I 
ascended  the  steps  Butler,  who  had  been  standing 
at  the  door,  closed  it  with  a  crash  and  retired 
within.  Through  a  crevice  in  the  blinds  he  was 
plain  to  be  seen  seated  at  his  desk  in  profound 
thought,  his  bulldog  face  in  repose,  his  rude 
forcefulness  very  manifest.  His  rule  at  New 
Orleans  had  come  to  an  end  and  no  doubt  he 
was  pondering  it  and  dreaming  of  what  the 
future  had  in  store  for  him.  His  burly  frame 
was  relaxed,  his  bluff  unshaken  countenance 
with  the  queer  sinister  cast  of  the  eyes  fully 
lighted  up  by  the  lamp  on  his  table.     I  studied 


42  THe  Last  Leaf 

liim  at  leisure,  his  marvellous  energy  for  a  mo- 
ment in  repose.  In  those  days  his  name  was 
much  in  the  mouths  of  men,  and  whatever  may 
be  said  in  his  disfavour,  it  cannot  be  denied 
after  fifty  years  that  his  rule  of  New  Orleans 
was  a  masterpiece  of  resolution,  a  riding  rough- 
shod over  a  great  disaffected  city  which  marked 
him  as  full  of  intrepidity  and  executive  force. 
In  the  field  he  was  a  worse  failure  than  ever 
Banks  had  been.  In  my  idea  he  deserves  in 
1864  the  characterisation  by  Charles  Francis 
Adams.  He  was  the  Grouchy  who  made  futile 
Grant's  advance  upon  Richmond  and  he  blun- 
dered at  Fort  Fisher,  but  he  was  a  pachyderm  of 
the  toughest — too  thick-skinned  to  be  troubled 
by  the  scratches  of  criticism,  always  floundering 
to  the  front  with  unquenched  energy,  sometimes 
a  power  for  good  and  sometimes  for  evil.  It  is 
hard  to  strike  the  balance  and  say  whether  for 
the  most  part  he  helped  or  hindered,  but  our 
past  would  lack  a  strong  element  of  picturesque- 
ness  if  old  Ben  Butler  were  eliminated. 

There  were  pathetic  figures  among  the  West 
Pointers  as  well  as  among  the  civilian  generals. 
At  St.  Louis,  in  the  seventies,  I  used  to  see 
sometimes  an  unobtrusive  man  in  citizen's  dress, 
marked  by  no  trait  which  distinguished  him 
from  the  ordinary,  a  man  serious  in  his  bear- 
ing, who  one  might  easily  think  had  undergone 
some  crushing  blow.  This  was  Major-General 
John  Pope.     His  son  was  in  our  university  and 


JoKn  Pope  43 

his  sister,  a  most  kind  and  gracious  lady,  was 
a  near  friend.  Pope  seems  destined  to  go  down 
in  our  history  merely  as  a  braggart  and  an  in- 
competent. Probably  no  man  of  that  time  meant 
better  or  was  more  abused  by  capricious  fate. 
Cox,  whose  daughter  married  the  son  of  Pope 
and  who  therefore  came  to  know  him  well  in 
his  later  years,  defends  him  vigorously.  In  the 
early  years  of  the  war  he  showed  himself  bold 
and  active.  The  capture  of  Island  Number  Ten 
with  its  garrison  was  rather  a  naval  and  en- 
gineering exploit  than  an  achievement  of  the 
army,  but  Pope  seems  to  have  done  well  what 
was  required  of  him  and  probably  deserved  his 
promotion  to  tlie  command  of  a  corps  at  Corinth 
when  an  advance  southward  was  meditated  in 
the  early  summer  of  >62.  It  was  with  deep  un- 
willingness that  he  received  the  summons  of  the 
Administration  to  command  an  army  in  Vir- 
ginia, and  only  assumed  the  place  from  the  feel- 
ing that  a  soldier  must  stand  where  he  is  put. 
Arrived  at  Washington,  he  found  himself  in  an 
atmosphere  hot  with  wrath  and  mortification. 
The  Peninsular  campaign  had  failed  and  strong 
spirits  like  Stanton  and  Ben  Wade,  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War,  were 
on  fire  through  disappointment.  The  new  Gen- 
eral, whose  position  until  within  a  few  months 
had  been  a  humble  one,  was  brow-beaten  and 
dominated  by  powerful  personalities  and  forced 
to  stand  for  acts  and  words  which   were  not 


44  THe  Last  Leaf 

really  his  own.  He  declared,  said  Cox,  that  his 
bombastic  and  truculent  orders  were  practically 
dictated  by  others.  The  declaration  that  his 
headquarters  wTould  be  his  saddle,  which  Lee  so 
wittily  turned,  saying,  "then  his  headquarters 
would  be  where  his  hindquarters  ought  to  be," 
Pope  declares  he  never  made.  When  his  en- 
vironment had  in  this  way  aroused  prejudice 
against  him,  he  was  set  to  command  an  army 
whose  higher  officers  felt  outraged  at  his  sudden 
rise  over  their  heads  and  whose  soldiers  were 
discouraged  by  defeat.  He  was  expected  to  op- 
pose skilful  and  victorious  foes  with  instruments 
that  bent  and  broke  in  the  crisis  as  he  tried  to 
wield  them.  Only  supreme  genius  could  have 
wrought  success  in  such  a  situation,  and  that 
Pope  did  not  at  all  possess.  He  was  only  a 
man  of  resolution,  with  no  exceptional  gifts, 
who  desired  to  do  his  best  for  his  country.  In 
the  West  he  had  proceeded  usefully  and  honour- 
ably, and  it  was  the  worst  misfortune  for  him 
that  he  was  taken  for  the  new  place.  I  hope 
that  history  will  deal  kindly  with  him  and  that, 
since  he  was  a  worthy  and  strenuous  patriot, 
he  will  not  live  merely  as  an  obiect  of  execration 
and  ridicule. 

In  August,  1863,  my  too  brief  term  of  service 
having  expired,  I  came  home  to  the  Connecticut 
Valley  and  resumed  my  pulpit,  which  I  had  left 
for  a  vacation  and  powder-smoke.  Gettysburg 
and  Vicksburg  had  taken  place,  and  we  at  the 


Henry  W.  Slocum  45 

North  too  fondly  hoped  that  all  was  over  and 
that  we  might  confidently  settle  down  to  peace. 
When  going  west  to  Buffalo  for  a  visit  I  was 
delayed  a  few  hours  at  Syracuse  and  took  the 
occasion  to  call  on  an  intimate  friend  of  my 
father  and  myself,  the  Rev.  Samuel  J.  May.     Mr. 
May,  a  bright  and  beautiful  spirit,  was  by  nature 
a  strong  peace  man,  but,  fired  by  the  woes  of 
the  slave,  he  had  become  an  extreme  abolitionist 
and  was  ready  to  fight  for  his  principles.     En- 
tering Mr.  May's  quiet  study  I  found  him  in 
intimate  talk  with   a  man  of  unassuming  de- 
meanour, in  citizen's  dress,  marked  by  no  dis- 
tinction of  face  or  figure.     He  might  have  been 
a  delegate  to  a  peace  convention,  or  a  country 
minister  from  way-back  calling  on  a  professional 
brother.     What  was  my  astonishment  when  Mr. 
May  introduced  him  as  Major-General  Henry  W. 
Slocum,  commander  of  the  Twelfth  Corps,  who, 
taking  a  short  furlough  after  Gettysburg,  was 
at  home  for  the  moment  and  had  dropped  in 
for  a  friendly  call.      Slocum  had  been  in  the 
thick  of  most  of  the  bitter  Virginia  battles  from 
the  first,  and  all  the  world  knew  that  at  Gettys- 
burg, by  beating  back  the  thrust  of  the  Stone- 
wall division  toward  the  Baltimore  pike,  he  had 
secured  the  threatened  rear  of  the  army  of  the 
Potomac  and  averted  defeat.     This  had  taken 
place  in  the  preceding  month,  and  I  naturally 
marvelled   that  the   unpretending,   simple   man 
could  be  that  victorious  champion,  but  for  the 


46  THe  Last  Leaf 

time  being  we  were  there  plain  citizens,  and, 
American  fashion,  the  Major-General  and  the 
Corporal  shook  hands  and  fraternised  on  equal 
terms.  It  probably  helped  me  with  Slocuni  that 
I  too  had  been  in  danger.  About  the  time  he 
was  defending  Culp's  Hill,  I  had  been  in  the 
ditch  at  the  foot  of  the  Port  Hudson  rampart. 

While  reticent  as  to  his  part  at  Gettysburg, 
he  spoke  with  feeling  of  what  his  corps  had 
been  through,  and  knowing  that  both  Mr.  May 
and  I  were  Massachusetts  men  took  an  evident 
pleasure  in  commending  the  regiments  from  that 
State.  Of  the  2d  Massachusetts  he  spoke 
with  high  appreciation;  it  was  an  admirable 
body  of  men  and  thoroughly  disciplined.  It  was 
always  ready ;  its  losses  were  fearful  and  he  felt 
that  he  ought  to  spare  it  if  he  could,  but  a  crisis 
always  came  when  only  the  best  would  answer, 
and  again  and  again  the  2d  Massachusetts 
was  thrown  in.  Particularly  at  Gettysburg  its 
services  had  been  great  and  its  sacrifice  costly. 
He  spoke  feelingly  of  the  young  officers  who  had 
been  slain  and  also  of  humbler  men.  Since  that 
time  I  have  stood  by  the  simple  stone  at  the 
"bloody  swale  at  the  foot  of  Gulp's  Hill," 
which  marked  the  position  held  that  day  by 
the  2d  Massachusetts.  It  takes  no  trained  eye 
to  see  that  it  was  a  point  of  especial  difficulty 
and  importance.  Some  of  the  men  of  that 
regiment  who  fell  that  day  were  my  own  col- 
lege comrades.     I  was  glad  to  know  from  his 


Oliver  O.   Howard  47 

lips   that   the   commander   thought  their  work 
heroic. 

One  naturally  brackets  the  name  of  Slocum 
with  that  of  Howard,  secondary  figures  of 
course  in  the  great  Civil  War  drama  and  yet 
both  steadfast  and  worthy  soldiers.  They  rose 
together  into  places  of  responsibility  during  the 
Peninsular  campaign,  became  commanders  of 
corps  about  the  same  time,  served  side  by  side 
at  Gettysburg,  went  together  to  the  West,  and 
finally,  one  at  the  head  of  Sherman's  right  wing 
and  the  other  at  the  head  of  the  left,  made  the 
march  to  the  sea  and  through  the  Carolinas. 
Neither  perhaps  was  a  brilliant  soldier.  So  far 
as  the  records  show,  Slocum  always  did  his  work 
well,  was  increasingly  trusted  to  the  last,  and 
nowhere  made  a  grave  mistake.  In  Howard's 
case,  the  rout  at  Chancellorsville  will  always  de- 
tract from  his  fame;  he  was,  however,  on  that 
day  new  in  his  place,  and  the  infatuation  of 
Hooker  by  an  evil  contagion  passed  down  to 
his  lieutenants.  But  he  too  steadily  improved, 
refusing  resolutely  to  be  discouraged  by  his 
mistakes  and  always  doing  better  next  time. 
Perhaps  no  one  act  during  the  war  was  more 
important  than  the  occupation  of  Cemetery  Hill 
on  the  morning  of  July  1,  1863,  by  a  Federal 
division.  I  think  that  the  credit  of  that  act  can- 
not be  denied  to  Howard.  In  a  later  time  he 
passed  under  the  control  of  Sherman  in  the 
West,  a  shrewd  and  relentless  judge  of  men,  and 


48  The  Last  Leaf 

Sherman  trusted  him  to  the  utmost.  To  a 
group  of  officers  in  their  cups  who  were  chaffing 
Howard  for  being  Puritanical,  Sherman  curtly 
said :  "  Let  Howard  alone ;  I  want  one  general 
who  does  n't  drink." 

I  saw  General  Howard  at  Gettysburg  on  the 
fortieth  anniversary  of  the  battle.  We  were 
under  the  same  roof,  and  during  the  evening  I 
sat  close  to  him  in  the  common  room  and  heard 
him  talk, — a  strenuous  old  man,  his  empty 
sleeve  recalling  tragically  the  combats  through 
which  he  had  passed.  Close  by  under  the  stars 
could  still  be  traced  the  lines  occupied  by  Stein- 
wehr's  division,  the  troops  which  with  such 
momentous  results  Howard  had  posted  on  Ceme- 
tery Hill.  I  might  easily  have  talked  with  him, 
for  he  was  affable  to  old  and  young,  but  I  pre- 
ferred to  study  the  good  veteran  from  a  distance 
and  let  others  draw  out  his  story  while  I  listened. 

In  the  winter  of  1861  I  went  to  Port  Royal, 
through  the  good  offices  of  my  friend  Rufus 
Saxton,  then  a  captain  and  quartermaster  of  the 
expedition  under  which  Dupont  had  taken  pos- 
session of  the  Sea  Islands  in  South  Carolina. 
The  capture  of  Port  Royal  had  taken  place  a 
few  weeks  before  and  the  army  was  encamped 
on  the  conquered  territory.  Saxton  was  an  in- 
teresting figure,  Who  in  an  unusual  way  showed 
during  the  war  a  fine  spirit  of  self-sacrifice.  At 
the  outbreak,  a  high  position  in  the  field  was 
within  his  grasp;  he  was  second  in  command 


IVufvis  Saxton  49 

to  Lyon  in  St.  Louis,  and  being  intimate  with 
McClellan  might  have  held  a  position  of  respon- 
sibility in  the  field.  He  was  indeed  made  a 
general.  Once  in  1862  he  was  in  command  of 
a  considerable  force,  and  when  Banks  was  driven 
out  of  the  Shenandoah  Valley  by  Stonewall  Jack- 
son he  withstood  at  Harper's  Ferry  the  rush  of 
the  Confederates  into  Maryland.  But  at  the 
solicitation  of  Lincoln  and  Stanton  he  gave  up 
service  in  the  field,  for  which  he  was  well  fitted 
and  which  he  earnestly  desired,  to  act  as  Mili- 
tary Governor  of  the  Sea  Islands,  where  his 
work  was  to  receive  and  care  for  the  thousands 
of  negroes  who  by  the  flight  of  their  masters 
in  that  region  had  been  left  to  themselves.  Here 
he  remained  throughout  the  war,  while  his  old 
comrades  were  winning  fame  at  the  head  of 
divisions  and  corps,  a  patient,  humane  teacher 
and  administrator  among  the  nation's  wards. 
He  was  content  to  live  through  the  stirring  time 
inconspicuous,  but  he  won  the  respect  of  all 
kindly  hearts  at  the  North  and  deep  gratitude 
from  the  helpless  blacks  whom  he  so  long  and 
humanely  befriended. 

I  came  in  contact  during  that  visit  with  a 
number  of  soldiers  soon  to  be  famous.  In  the 
boat  which  carried  me  from  the  transport  to 
the  shore  I  had  as  a  fellow-passenger  James  H. 
Wilson,  then  a  lieutenant  but  soon  to  be  a 
famous  cavalry  commander.  He  was  a  restless 
athletic  young  man,  who  when  I  met  him  was 

4 


50  THe  Last  Leaf 

on  fire  with  wrath  over  the  giving  up  of  Mason 
and  Slidell,  the  news  of  which  had  come  to  the 
post  by  our  steamer.  I  tried  to  argue  with  him, 
that  we  had  enough  on  our  hands  with  the  South 
without  rushing  into  war  with  England  besides, 
but  he  was  impetuously  confident  that  we  could 
take  care  of  all  foes  outside  and  in,  and  main- 
tained that  the  giving  up  of  the  envoys  was  a 
burning  shame.  His  vigour  and  confidence  were 
excessive,  I  thought,  but  they  carried  him  far 
in  a  time  soon  to  come. 

I  talked  with  General  Thomas  W.  Sherman, 
the  commander  of  the  expedition,  in  his  tent, 
but  was  more  interested  in  a  dispute  which 
presently  sprang  up  between  the  General  and  a 
companion  of  mine,  Jonathan  Saxton,  father  of 
Rufus  Saxton,  an  abolitionist  of  the  most  per- 
fervid  type,  a  good  talker  and  quite  unabashed, 
plain  farmer  though  he  was,  by  a  pair  of 
epaulettes. 

Among  our  regular  officers  there  were  few 
abolitionists.  Rufus  Saxton  told  me  that  Lyon 
was  the  only  one  of  any  distinction  who  could 
be  so  classed  among  the  men  he  knew.  T.  W. 
Sherman  was  like  his  fellows  and  listeued  im- 
patiently to  what  he  felt  was  fanaticism  gone 
mad,  but  the  fluent  old  farmer  drove  home  his 
radicalism  undauntedly.  T.  W.  Sherman  before 
the  war  had  been  a  well-known  figure  as  com- 
mander of  Sherman's  flying  artillery,  which  was 
perhaps  the   most  famous  organisation   of  the 


"WrigHt  and  Stevens  51 

regular  army,  but  his  name  scarcely  appears  in 
the  history  of  the  Civil  War,  more  perhaps  from 
lack  of  good  fortune  than  of  merit.  He  was 
crippled  with  wounds  in  the  first  important 
battle  in  which  he  was  concerned.  The  two 
brigadiers  at  Port  Royal,  Horatio  G.  Wright 
and  Isaac  I.  Stevens,  both  became  soldiers  of 
note.  Wright  was  a  handsome  fellow  in  his 
best  years,  whom  I  recall  stroking  his  chin  with 
an  amused  quizzical  expression  while  Jonathan 
Saxton  poured  out  his  Garrisonism.  His  bri- 
gade lay  well  to  the  south  and  his  headquarters 
were  at  the  old  Tybee  lighthouse  which  marked 
the  entrance  to  the  harbour  of  Savannah.  I 
climbed  with  him  up  the  sand  hill,  from  the 
top  of  which  we  looked  down  upon  Fort  Pulaski 
then  in  Confederate  hands  and  within  short 
range.  We  peered  cautiously  over  the  summit, 
for  shells  frequently  came  from  the  fort. 
Wright  held  in  his  hand  a  fragment  of  one 
wThich  had  just  before  exploded.  "  How  well  it 
took  the  groove !  "  he  said,  pointing  out  to  me 
the  signs  on  the  iron  that  the  rifled  cannon  from 
which  it  had  come  had  given  the  missile  in  the 
discharge  the  proper  twist.  Wright's  after-career 
is  part  of  the  war's  history,  always  strenuous 
and  constantly  rising.  The  fame  which  attaches 
to  the  Sixth  Corps  is  largely  due  to  the  leader- 
ship of  Wright.  If  he  fell  short  at  Cedar  Creek 
in  1864  it  was  a  lapse  which  may  be  pardoned 
in  the  circumstances.      Sheridan  retrieved  the 


52  TKe  Last  Leaf 

day  and  magnanimously  palliated  the  misfortune 
of  Wright.  "  It  might  have  happened  to  me  or 
to  any  man."  The  good  soldier  deserves  the 
fine  monument  which  stands  by  his  grave  in 
the  foreground  at  Arlington. 

I  had  at  Port  Royal  a  long  and  friendly  talk 
with  Isaac  I.  Stevens.  He  was  already  a  man 
of  note.  After  achieving  the  highest  honours  at 
West  Point  he  had  gone  to  the  West,  and  in 
the  great  unexplored  Pacific  Northwest  had  con- 
quered, built,  and  systematised  until  a  fair 
foundation  was  laid  for  the  fine  civilisation 
which  now  sixty  years  later  has  been  reared 
upon  it.  He  was  modest  in  his  bearing,  with 
well-knit  and  sinewy  frame,  and  possessed  at 
the  same  time  refined  manners  and  a  taste  for 
the  higher  things  of  life.  Before  the  year  had 
passed,  his  life  went  out  in  the  second  battle  of 
Bull  Run.  In  the  end  of  that  terrible  campaign, 
he  essayed  with  Phil  Kearny  to  stem  at  Chan- 
tilly  the  rush  of  Stonewall  Jackson  upon  Wash- 
ington. The  attempt  was  successful,  but  Stevens 
died  waving  the  colours  at  the  head  of  his  men. 
It  is  said  that  Lincoln  had  marked  him  for  the 
command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  He  had 
made  good  in  all  previous  positions,  and  per- 
haps would  have  made  good  in  the  chief  place, 
but  here  I  stumble  once  more  upon  a  might- 
have-been  and  am  silent. 

Dear  ghosts  of  old-time  friends  swarm  in  my 
thought  as  I  dream  of  those  days.     The  white 


Harvard  Soldiers  53 

marbles  in  Memorial  Chapel  solemnly  bear  the 
names  of  Harvard's  Civil  War  soldiers  and  tell 
how  they  died.  There  was  one  of  whom  I  might 
say  much,  an  elder  companion,  a  wise  and 
pleasant  spirit  who  did  something  toward  my 
shaping  for  life.  A  cannon-ball  at  Cold  Harbor 
was  the  end  for  him.  There  was  another,  a 
brilliant,  handsome  young  Irishman,  bred  a 
Catholic,  who  under  the  influence  of  Moncure 
D.  Conway  had  come  out  as  a  Unitarian  and  left 
his  Washington  home  for  a  radical  environment 
in  the  North.  He  was  brilliant  and  witty  with 
small  capacity  or  taste  for  persistent  plodding, 
but  forever  hitting  effectively  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment.  He  was  as  chivalrous  as  a  palladin 
and  went  to  his  early  grave  light-hearted,  as  part 
of  the  day's  work  which  must  not  be  shirked. 
I  have  his  image  vividly  as  he  laughed  and  joked 
in  our  last  interview.  "  Dress-parade  at  six 
o'clock ;  come  over  and  see  the  dress-paradoes ! " 
He  fell  wounded  at  Chancellorsville,  and  while 
being  carried  off  the  field  was  struck  a  second 
time  as  he  lay  on  the  stretcher,  and  so  he  passed. 
There  were  fine  fellows,  too,  in  those  days  who 
stood  on  the  other  side:  McKim,  President  of 
the  Hasty  Pudding  Club,  who  fell  in  Virginia; 
W.  H.  F.  Lee,  who  was  in  the  Law  School  and 
whom  I  recall  as  a  stalwart  athlete  rowing  on 
the  Charles.  It  helped  me  much  a  few  years 
ago  when  I  visited  many  Southern  battle-fields 
that  I  could  tell  old  Confederates  "  Rooney " 


54  THe  Last  Leaf 

Lee  and  I  had  in  our  youth  been  college  mates. 
My  classmate  J.  B.  Clark  of  Mississippi  was  a 
graceful  magnetic  fellow  who  had  small  basis 
of  scholarship,  perhaps,  but  a  marked  power  for 
effective  utterance.  He  fascinated  us  by  his 
warm  Southern  fluency,  and  we  gave  him  at  last 
the  highest  distinction  we  could  confer,  the  class 
oration.  He  left  us  then  and  we  did  not  see 
him  for  fifty  years.  He  enlisted  in  the  21st 
Mississippi  and  passed  through  the  roughest 
hardships  and  perils.  We  felt  afterwards  that 
he  held  coldly  aloof  from  us  through  long  years. 
At  our  jubilee,  however,  he  came  back  wrinkled 
and  white-haired,  but  quite  recognisable  as  the 
fascinating  boy  of  fifty  years  before.  He  had 
a  long  and  good  record  behind  him  as  an  officer 
of  the  University  of  Texas,  and  we  gave  him 
reason  to  think  that  we  loved  him  still.  The 
most  cordial  meetings  I  have  ever  known  have 
been  those  between  men  who  had  fought  each 
other  bitterly,  each  with  an  honest  conviction 
that  he  was  in  the  right,  but  who  at  last  have 
come  out  on  common  ground. 

Among  the  Harvard  soldiers  three  stand  out 
in  my  thought  as  especially  interesting,  William 
Francis  Bartlett,  Charles  Russell  Lowell,  and 
Francis  Channing  Barlow.  Bartlett  was  younger 
than  I,  entering  service  when  scarcely  beyond 
boyhood,  losing  a  leg  at  BalPs  Bluff,  and  when 
only  twenty- three  Colonel  of  the  49th  Massa- 
chusetts.     I  remember  well  a  beautiful  night, 


Bartlett  and  Lowell  55 

the  moon  at  the  full,  and  the  hospital  on  the 
river  bank  just  below  Port  Hudson  where  hun- 
dreds of  wounded  men  were  arriving  from  a 
disastrous  battle-field  close  at  hand. 

Bartlett  had  ridden  into  battle  on  horseback, 
his  one  leg  making  it  impossible  for  him  to  go 
on  foot,  and  he  was  a  conspicuous  mark  for  the 
sharpshooters.  A  ball  had  passed  through  his 
remaining  foot,  and  still  another  through  his 
arm,  causing  painful  wounds  to  which  he  was 
forced  to  yield.  He  lay  stretched  out,  a  tall, 
slender  figure  with  a  clear-cut  patrician  face, 
very  pale  and  still  but  with  every  sign  of  suf- 
fering stoically  repressed.  He  was  conscious  as 
I  stood  for  a  moment  at  his  side.  It  was  not 
a  time  to  speak  even  a  word,  but  I  hoped  he 
might  feel  through  some  occult  influence  that  a 
Harvard  brother  was  there  at  hand,  full  of 
sympathy  for  him.  He  afterwards  recovered  in 
part,  and,  with  unconquerable  will,  though  he 
was  only  a  fragment  of  a  man,  went  in  again 
and  was  still  again  stricken.  He  survived  it 
all,  and  to  me  it  was  perhaps  the  most  thrilling 
incident  of  the  Harvard  commemoration  of  1865 
to  see  Bartlett,  too  crippled  to  walk  without  their 
support,  helped  to  a  place  of  honour  on  the  stage 
by  reverent  friends. 

Charles  Russell  Lowell  was  in  the  class  pre- 
ceding mine;  his  father  had  been  my  father's 
classmate,  and  had  done  me  many  a  favour;  his 
mother  was  Mrs.  Anna  Jackson  Lowell,  one  of 


5&  t  The  Last  Leaf 

the  best  and  ablest  Boston  women  of  her  time. 
In  her  house  I  had  been  a  guest.  Charles  and 
James,  the  sons,  were  youths  of  the  rarest  intel- 
lectual gifts,  each  first  scholar  of  his  class,  of 
whom  the  utmost  was  expected.  How  strange 
that  fate  should  have  made  them  soldiers !  They 
both  perished  on  the  battle-field.  As  I  remember 
Charlie  Lowell,  the  boy  was  fitly  the  father  of 
the  man.  We  were  playing  football  one  day  on 
the  Delta,  the  old-fashioned  game  of  those  days, 
at  which  modern  athletes  smile,  but  which  we 
old  fellows  think  was  a  good  tough  game  for 
all  that.  I  had  secured  the  ball,  and  thinking 
I  had  time,  placed  it  rather  leisurely,  promising 
myself  an  effective  kick.  A  slight  figure  bounded 
with  lightning  rush  from  the  opposing  line,  and 
from  under  my  very  foot  drove  the  ball  far  be- 
hind me  to  a  point  which  secured  victory. 

How  little  I  knew  that  I  had  just  witnessed 
a  small  exhibition  of  the  quickness  and  prompt 
decision  which  no  long  time  after  on  critical 
battle-fields  were  to  be  put  to  splendid  use.  He 
proved  to  be  a  nearly  perfect  soldier;  Sheridan 
said  of  him,  that  he  knew  of  no  virtue  that  could 
be  added  to  Lowell.  To  us  he  seems  one  of  the 
manliest  of  men,  thoughtful  for  others,  even  for 
dumb  beasts.  In  Edward  Emerson's  charming 
life  of  him,  nothing,  perhaps,  is  sweeter  than 
his  affection  for  his  horses,  of  which  it  was  said 
that  thirteen  were  killed  under  him  before  he 
came  to  death  himself.     He  studied  their  char* 


Francis  C.  barlow  57 

acters  as  if  they  had  been  human  beings,  and 
dwells  in  his  letters  on  the  particular  lovable 
traits  each  one  showed — these  mute  companions 
who  stood  so  closely  by  him  in  life  and  death. 

When  our  class  first  assembled  in  1851  there 
was  a  slight  boy  of  seventeen  in  the  company, 
Francis  Channing  Barlow.  He  was  incon- 
spicuous through  face  or  figure,  but  it  early 
became  clear  that  he  was  to  be  our  first  scholar, 
and  a  wayward  deportment  with  an  odd  sar- 
donic wit  soon  made  him  an  object  of  interest. 
Barlow  came  admirably  fitted,  and  this  good 
preparation,  standing  back  of  great  quickness 
and  power  of  mind,  made  it  easy  for  him  almost 
without  study  to  take  a  leading  place.  As  a 
boy  he  was  well  grounded,  outside  of  his  special 
accomplishments,  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathe- 
matics. I  remember  his  telling  me  that  his 
mother  read  Plutarch  to  him  when  he  was  a 
child,  and  that  and  many  another  good  book  he 
had  thoroughly  stored  away.  Such  accomplish- 
ments were  an  exasperation  to  us  poor  fellows 
who  had  come  in  from  the  remote  outskirts  and 
found  we  must  compete  for  honours  with  men 
so  well  equipped.  We  perhaps  magnified  the 
gifts  and  acquirements  of  the  fellows  who  had 
been  more  favourably  placed.  Barlow  seemed 
like  a  paragon  of  scholarship,  and  the  non- 
chalance with  which  he  always  won  in  the  class- 
rooms was  a  constant  marvel.  He  had  a  queer 
way  of  turning  serious  things  into  fun.     With 


58  TKe  Last  Leaf 

a  freshman  desire  for  self- improvement,  a  thing 
apt  to  evaporate  in  the  college  atmosphere,  we 
had  formed  a  society  for  grave  writing  and  de- 
bate and  hired  for  our  meetings  the  lodge-room 
of  the  "  Glorious  Apollers "  or  some  such 
organisation.  At  an  early  meeting  of  the  so- 
ciety, while  we  were  solemnly  struggling  through 
a  dignified  programme,  Barlow  suddenly  ap- 
peared from  a  side-door  rigged  out  most  fan- 
tastically in  plumes  and  draperies.  He  had 
somehow  got  hold  of  the  regalia  of  the  order 
and  drawlingiy  announced  himself  as  the  great 
panjandrum  who  had  come  to  take  part.  He 
danced  and  paraded  before  the  conclave  and  had 
no  difficulty  in  turning  the  session  into  a  wild 
revel  of  extravagant  guffaws  and  antics,  and 
after  that  time  the  occasions  were  many  when 
Barlow  gave  a  comic  turn  to  things  serious.  It 
was  said  that  Barlow,  going  back  and  forth  on 
the  train  between  Concord  and  Boston  as  he  did 
at  one  time,  got  hold  of  an  impressionable  brake- 
man,  and  by  exhortation  brought  about  in  him 
a  change  of  heart,  after  the  most  approved 
evangelical  manner,  counterfeiting  perfectly  the 
methods  of  a  revivalist,  which  he  did  for  the 
fun  of  the  thing.  The  story,  of  course,  was  an 
invention,  but  quite  in  character. 

He  was  no  respecter  of  conventions  and  some- 
times trod  ruthlessly  upon  proprieties.  "  What 
will  Barlow  do  next?  "  was  always  the  question. 
In  the  class-room  he  was  never  rattled  in  any 


Francis  C.  Barlow  59 

emergency,  his  really  sound  scholarship  was 
always  perfectly  in  hand  and  in  a  strait  no  one 
could  bluff  it  with  such  sang-froid  and  audacity. 
He  kept  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  class  to 
the  very  end,  but  there  Robert  Treat  Paine  came 
out  precisely  his  equal.  Among  the  many  thou- 
sand marks  accumulating  through  four  years  the 
total  for  both  men  was  exactly  alike — a  thing 
which  I  believe  has  never  happened  before  or 
since. 

Before  the  Arsenal  in  Cambridge  stood  an 
innocent  old  cannon  that  had  not  been  fired 
since  the  War  of  1812,  perhaps  not  since  the 
Revolution.  The  grass  and  flowers  grew  about 
its  silent  muzzle,  and  lambs  might  have  fed 
there  as  in  the  pretty  picture  of  Landseer.  Any 
thought  that  the  old  cannon  could  go  off  had 
long  ceased  to  be  entertained.  One  quiet  night 
a  tremendous  explosion  took  place;  the  cannon 
had  waked  up  from  its  long  sleep,  arousing  the 
babies  over  a  wide  region  and  many  a  pane  of 
glass  was  shivered.  What  had  got  into  the  old 
cannon  that  night  was  long  a  mystery.  Many 
years  after  Barlow  was  discovered  at  the  bottom 
of  it — it  was  the  first  shot  he  ever  fired. 

Dr.  James  Walker,  the  college  president,  said 
to  a  friend  of  mine  at  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
speculating  on  the  probable  futures  of  the  boys 
who  had  been  under  his  care,  "  There  's  Barlow, 
now  he  '11  go  in  and  come  out  at  the  top."  Bar- 
low had  been  a  sad  puzzle  to  the  faculty,  good 


60  The  Last  Leaf 

men,  often  perplexed  to  know  what  to  do  with 
him  or  what  would  become  of  him.  Dr.  Walker's 
astuteness  divined  well  the  outcome.  As  I  re- 
view those  early  years  I  can  see  now  that  Barlow 
then  gave  plain  signs  of  the  qualities  which  he 
was  later  to  display.  I  remember  sleeping  with 
him  once  in  a  room  in  the  top  story  of  Stoughton 
in  our  sophomore  year  and  he  talked  for  a  great 
part  of  the  night  about  Napoleon.  The  Corsican 
was  the  hero  who  beyond  all  others  had  fasci- 
nated him,  whose  career  he  would  especially  love 
to  emulate.  We  were  a  pair  of  boys  in  a  peace- 
ful college,  living  in  a  time  which  apparently 
would  afford  no  opportunity  for  a  soldier's 
career.  I  have  often  thought  of  that  talk.  Bar- 
low was  really  not  unlike  the  youthful  Napoleon, 
in  frame  he  was  slender  and  delicate,  his  com- 
plexion verged  toward  the  olive,  his  face  was 
always  beardless.  I  never  saw  him  thrown  off 
his  poise  in  any  emergency.  The  straits  of 
course  are  not  great  in  which  a  college  boy  is 
placed,  but  such  as  they  were,  Barlow  was  al- 
ways cool,  with  his  mind  working  at  its  best- 
in  the  midst  of  them.  He  was  never  abashed, 
but  had  a  resource  and  an  apt  one  in  every 
emergency.  He  was  absolutely  intrepid  before 
the  thrusts  of  our  sharpest  examiners  and  as  T 
have  said  could  bluff  it  boldly  and  dexterously 
where  his  knowledge  failed;  then  the  odd  cyni- 
cism with  which  he  turned  down  great  pretentions 
and  sometimes  matters  of  serious  import,  had  a 


Francis  C.  Barlow  61 

Napoleonic  cast.  In  '61  he  enlisted  as  a  private 
but  rose  swiftly  through  the  grades  to  the  com- 
mand of  a  regiment.  At  Antietam  he  had  part 
of  a  brigade  and  coralled  in  a  meteoric  way  on 
Longstreet's  front  line  some  hundreds  of  prison- 
ers. His  losses  were  great  but  he  was  in  the 
thick  of  it  himself,  his  poise  unruffled  until  he 
was  borne  desperately  wounded  from  the  field. 
The  surgeon  who  attended  him  told  me,  if  I  re- 
member right,  that  a  ball  passed  entirely  through 
his  body  carrying  with  it  portions  of  his  clothing, 
if  such  a  thing  were  possible ;  but,  with  his  usual 
nonchalance  he  laughed  at  wounds  and  while  still 
weak  and  emaciated  went  back  to  his  place  again 
in  the  following  spring  at  the  head  of  a  brigade. 
He  underwent  Chancellorsville,  and  for  the  Union 
cause  it  was  a  great  misfortune  that  his  fine 
brigade  was  taken  from  its  place  on  Hooker's 
right  before  Stonewall  Jackson  made  his  charge. 
Had  Barlow  been  there  he  might  have  done 
something  to  stay  the  disaster.  At  Gettysburg, 
however,  he  was  in  the  front  in  command  of 
a  division.  An  old  soldier,  a  lieutenant  that 
day  under  Barlow,  told  me  that  he  had  charge 
of  the  ambulances  of  the  division  and  on  the 
march  near  Emmitsburg  Barlow  put  into  the 
lieutenant's  especial  charge  the  ambulance  of  his 
wife  who,  with  a  premonition  of  calamity,  in- 
sisted on  being  near  at  hand  to  help.  When  the 
battle  joined  and  Gordon  swept  overwhelmingly 
upon  Barlow's  division,  the  lieutenant  had  difti- 


62  THe  Last  Leaf 

culty  in  restraining  Mrs.  Barlow  from  rushing 
at  once  upon  the  field  among  the  fighting  men. 
He  held  her  back  almost  by  force  but  she  re- 
mained close  at  hand.  Barlow  was  again  desper- 
ately wounded,  so  hurt  that  his  death  seemed 
inevitable,  and  when  the  faithful  wTife,  at  last 
making  her  way,  presented  herself  even  in  the 
rebel  lines  with  a  petition  for  her  husband,  sup- 
posed to  be  dying,  Gordon  chivalrously  gave  him 
up.  It  was  magnanimous,  but  for  him  ill-timed. 
Again  Barlow  laughed  at  his  wounds.  In  May, 
1864,  he  was  in  the  field  at  the  head  of  the 
first  division  of  Hancock's  corps  and  on  the  12th 
of  May  performed  the  memorable  exploit,  break- 
ing fairly  the  centre  of  Lee's  army  and  bringing 
it  nearer  to  defeat  than  it  ever  came  until  the 
catastrophe  at  Appomattox.  He  captured  the 
Spottsylvania  salient  together  with  the  best 
division  of  the  army  of  northern  Virginia,  Stone- 
wall Jackson's  old  command,  two  generals,  thirty 
colours,  cannon,  and  small  arms  to  correspond. 
John  Noyes,  a  soldier  of  a  class  after  us,  told 
me  that  in  the  salient  he  and  Barlow  worked 
like  privates  in  the  confusion  of  the  capture, 
turning  with  their  own  hands  against  the  enemy 
a  cannon  that  had  just  been  taken.  Barlow  was 
as  cool  as  when  he  fired  off  the  old  cannon  in 
Cambridge  ten  years  before.  This  stroke  proved 
futile,  but  from  no  shortcoming  of  Barlow's.  A 
few  weeks  later  at  Cold  Harbor  he  effected  a 
lodgment   within   the   Confederate  works  when 


Francis  C.  Barlow  63 

all  others  failed.  That  too  proved  futile,  but 
his  reputation  was  confirmed  as  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  of  division  commanders.  There  is  a 
photograph  in  existence  portraying  Hancock  and 
his  division  generals  as  they  appeared  during 
that  terrible  campaign.  It  was  taken  in  the 
woods  in  the  utmost  stress  of  service.  Barlow 
stands  in  the  group  just  as  he  looked  in  college, 
the  face  thin  and  beardless,  almost  that  of  a 
boy,  and  marked  with  the  nonchalance  which 
always  characterised  him.  There  are  no  mili- 
tary trappings,  a  rough  checked  shirt,  trousers, 
slouching  from  the  waist  to  campaign  boots, 
hang  loosely  about  the  attenuated  limbs.  Soon 
after  that  he  was  carried  from  the  field,  not 
wounded,  but  in  utter  exhaustion  after  exposures 
which  no  power  of  will  could  surmount.  A  few 
months'  respite  and  he  was  at  his  post  again, 
intercepting  by  a  swift  march  Lee's  retreating 
column,  almost  the  last  warlike  act  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  before  Appomattox.  In  this  "Last 
Leaf  "  I  do  not  deal  with  "  might-have-beens  "  I 
only  remember,  but  we  old  classmates  of  Barlow 
have  a  feeling  that  had  the  war  continued,  if 
only  the  bullets  to  which  he  was  always  so  hos- 
pitable had  spared  him,  he  would  have  gone  on 
to  the  command  of  a  corps,  and  perhaps  even 
to  greater  distinctions.  The  photograph  of  Bar- 
low, published  after  his  death  in  the  Harvard 
Graduates7  Magazine,  presents  him  as  he  was 
soon  after  the  war  was  over.     He  had  recovered 


64  THe  Last  Leaf 

from  the  hardships,  the  face  is  fairly  well 
rounded  but  still  rather  that  of  a  beardless, 
laughing  boy  than  of  a  man.  A  stranger  study- 
ing the  face  would  hear  with  incredulity  the 
story  of  the  responsibilities  and  dangers  wilich 
that  face  had  confronted.  He  laughed  it  all  off 
lightly,  and  that  was  his  way  when  occasionally 
in  his  later  years  he  came  to  our  meetings. 

I  recall  a  reunion  in  1865,  ten  years  after  our 
graduation.  We  sat  in  full  numbers  about  a 
sumptuous  banquet  at  the  Parker  House  in  Bos- 
ton, and  naturally  in  that  year  the  returned 
soldiers  were  in  the  foreground.  In  our  class 
were  two  major-generals,  four  colonels,  a  dis- 
tinguished surgeon,  and  many  more  of  lower 
rank.  Barlow  w7as  the  central  figure.  Theo- 
dore Lyman,  who  presided,  introduced  him  with 
a  glowing  tribute,  recounting  his  achievements, 
a  long  list  from  the  time  he  had  entered  as  a 
private  to  his  culmination  as  a  full  Major- 
General.  He  called  at  last  for  nine  cheers  for 
the  man  who  had  captured  the  Spottsylvania 
salient,  and  we  gave  them  with  a  roar  that  shook 
the  building.  Barlow  was  the  only  man  in  the 
room  who  showed  not  the  slightest  emotion.  He 
stood  impassive,  his  face  wearing  his  queer 
smile.  Other  men  might  have  been  abashed  at 
the  tumultuous  warmth  of  such  a  reception  from 
his  old  mates ;  a  natural  utterance  at  such  a  time 
wTould  have  been  an  expression  of  joy  that  the 
war  was  over  and  that  the  country  had  been 


Francis  C.  Barlow  65 

saved,  coupled  with  modest  satisfaction  that  he 
had  borne  some  part  in  the  great  vindication, 
but  that  was  not  Barlow's  way.  He  laughed  it 
off  lightly,  as  if  it  had  been  a  huge  joke.  My 
classmate,  the  late  Joseph  Willard  of  Boston, 
told  me  of  a  reunion  of  the  class  at  a  time  much 
later.  The  men  were  discussing  the  stained-glass 
window  which  it  had  been  decided  should  be 
put  in  Memorial  Hall.  Since  the  class  had  a 
distinguished  military  record  it  was  felt  that 
there  should  be  martial  suggestion  in  the  window 
and  the  question  was  what  classic  warrior  should 
be  portrayed.  The  face,  it  was  thought,  should 
have  the  lineaments  of  our  most  famous  soldier. 
Barlow,  who  was  present,  pooh-poohed  the  whole 
idea,  especially  the  suggestion  that  his  face 
should  appear,  but  someone  present  having  sug- 
gested Alcibiades,  probably  not  seriously  as  a 
proper  type,  that  seemed  to  strike  Barlow's  sense 
of  humour.  That  reckless  classic  scapegrace  to 
his  cynical  fancy  perhaps  might  pass,  he  might 
be  Alcibiades,  but  who  should  be  the  dog?  Alci- 
biades had  a  dog  whose  misfortune  in  losing  his 
tail  has  been  transmitted  through  centuries  by 
the  pen  of  Plutarch.  "  Who  will  be  the  dog?  " 
said  Barlow  and  called  upon  someone  to  furnisli 
a  face  for  the  hero's  canine  companion.  The 
scheme  for  the  window  came  near  to  going  to 
wreck  amid  the  outbursts  of  laughter.  It  was 
carried  through  later,  however,  but  Alcibiades 
and  the  dog  do  not  appear,  although   Barlow 


66 


The  Last  Leaf 


does.  No  other  Harvard  soldier  readied  Bar- 
low's eminence,  and  probably  in  the  whole  Army 
of  the  Potomac  there  were  few  abler  champions. 
He  was  a  strange,  gifted,  most  picturesque  per- 
sonality, no  doubt  a  better  man  under  his  cynical 
exterior  than  he  would  ever  suffer  it  to  be 
thought.  His  service  was  great,  and  the  memory 
of  him  is  an  interesting  and  precious  possession 
to  those  who  knew  him  in  boyhood  and  were  in 
touch  with  him  to  the  end. 


CHAPTER  III 

HORACE   MANN   AND  ANTIOCH   COLLEGE 

THE  cataclysm  of  the  Civil  War,  in  which  as 
the  preceding  pages  show  I  had  been  in- 
volved, had  shaken  me  in  my  old  moorings.  I 
found  myself  not  content  in  a  quiet  parish  in 
the  Connecticut  Valley,  and  as  I  fared  forth 
was  fortunate  enough  to  meet  a  leader  in  a 
remarkable  personage.  Horace  Mann  was  in- 
deed dead,  but  remained,  as  he  still  remains,  a 
power.  His  brilliant  gifts  and  self -consecration 
made  him,  first,  a  great  educational  path-breaker. 
From  that  he  passed  into  politics,  exhibiting  in 
Congress  abilities  of  the  highest.  Like  an  in- 
constant lover,  however,  he  harked  back  to  his  old 
attachment,  and  putting  aside  a  fine  preferment, 
the  governorship  of  Massachusetts,  it  was  said,, 
forsook  his  old  home  for  the  headship  of  An- 
tioch  College  in  south-western  Ohio.  I  shall  not 
dispute  here  whether  or  not  he  chose  wisely; 
much  less,  how  far  a  lame  outcome  at  Antioch 
was  due  to  his  human  limitations,  and  how  far 
to  the  inevitable  conditions.  He  was  a  potent  and 

67 


68  THe  Last  Leaf 

unselfish  striver  for  the  betterment  of  men, 
and  his  words  and  example  still  remain  an 
inspiration. 

My  father  in  these  years  was  a  trustee  of 
Antioch  College,  and  this  brought  our  house- 
hold into  touch  with  the  illustrious  figure 
of  whom  all  men  spoke.  My  memory  holds  more 
than  a  film  of  him,  rather  a  vivid  picture,  his 
stately  height  dominating  my  boyish  inches,  as 
I  stood  in  his  presence.  He  was  spare  to  the 
point  of  being  gaunt,  every  fibre  charged  with 
a  magnetism  which  caused  a  throb  in  the  by- 
stander. Over  penetrating  eyes  hung  a  beetling 
brow,  and  his  aggressive.,  resonant  voice  com- 
manded even  in  slight  utterances.  I  recall  him 
in  a  public  address.  The  newspapers  were  full 
of  the  Strassburg  geese,  which,  nails  being 
driven  through  their  web  feet  to  hold  them  mo- 
tionless, were  fed  to  develop  exaggerated  livers, 
— these  for  the  epicures  of  Paris.  "  For  health 
and  wholesome  appetite,"  he  exclaimed,  "  I  coun- 
sel you  to  eschew  les  pates  de  foie  gras,  but 
climb  a  mountain  or  swing  an  axe."  No  great 
sentence  in  an  exhortation  to  vigorous,  manful 
living.  But  the  scornful  staccato  with  which 
he  rolled  out  the  French,  and  the  ringing  voice 
and  gesture  with  which  he  accompanied  his  ex- 
hortation, stamped  it  indelibly.  From  that  day 
to  this,  if  I  have  felt  a  beguilement  toward  the 
flesh-pots,  I  still  hear  the  stern  tones  of  Horace 
Mann.     In  general  his  eloquence  was  extraor- 


Horace  Mann  69 

dinary,  and  I  suppose  few  Americans  have  pos- 
sessed a  power  more  marked  for  cutting,  bitter 
speech.  His  invective  was  masterly,  and  too 
often  perhaps  merciless,  and  it  was  a  weapon 
he  was  not  slow  to  wield  on  occasions  large  and 
small.  In  Congress  he  lashed  deservedly  low- 
minded  policies  and  misguided  blatherskites, 
but  his  wrathful  outpourings  upon  pupils  for 
some  trivial  offence  were  sometimes  over-copious. 
There  are  Boston  schoolmasters,  still  living  per- 
haps, who  yet  feel  a  smart  from  his  scourge. 
His  personality  was  so  incisive  that  probably 
few  were  in  any  close  or  long  contact  with  him 
without  a  good  rasping  now  and  then.  My 
father  was  the  most  amiable  of  men,  yet  even 
he  did  not  escape.  As  an  Antioch  trustee  he 
was  in  charge  of  funds  which  were  not  to  be 
applied  unless  certain  conditions  were  satisfied. 
Horace  Mann  demanded  the  money,  and  it  was 
withheld  on  occasions  and  a  deluge  of  ire  was 
poured  upon  my  poor  father's  head.  It  did  not 
cause  him  to  falter  in  his  conviction  of  Horace 
Mann's  greatness  and  goodness.  Nor  has  this  over- 
ready  impetuosity  ever  caused  the  world  to  falter 
in  its  reverence.  He  came  bringing  not  peace  but 
a  sword,  in  all  the  spheres  4n  which  he  moved, 
and  in  Horace  Mann's  world  it  was  a  time  for 
the  sword.  He  was  a  path-breaker  in  regions 
obstructed  by  mischievous  accumulations.  There 
was  need  of  his  virile  championship,  and  none 
will    say    that   there   was    ever   in    him   undue 


70  THe  Last  Leaf 

thought  of  self  or  indifference  to  the  best 
humanity. 

My  father  held  fast  to  the  sharp-cornered 
saint  and  prophet,  though  somewhat  excoriated 
in  the  association.  He  held  fast  to  his  trustee- 
ship of  Antioch ;  and  in  1866,  Horace  Mann  hav- 
ing some  years  before  been  laid  in  his  untimely 
grave,  he  stood  in  his  place  as  president  of  the 
college.  Through  the  agency  of  my  dear  friends 
of  those  years,  Dr.  Henry  W.  Bellows  and  Dr. 
Edward  Everett  Hale,  I  was  to  go  with  him  as, 
so  to  speak,  his  under-study,  discharging  the 
work  of  English  professor  and  sometimes  the 
duties  of  preacher.  I  went  gladly.  The  spirit 
of  the  dead  leader  haunted  pervasively  the  shades 
where  he  had  laboured  and  died.  The  tradition 
of  Horace  Mann  was  paramount  among  the  stu- 
dents, the  graduates,  and  the  whole  environment. 
I  had  felt  as  a  boy  the  spell  of  his  voice  and 
presence  and  knew  no  hero  whom  I  could  follow 
more  cordially.  It  was  a  joy  to  become  domi- 
ciled in  the  house  which  had  been  built  for  him 
and  where  he  had  breathed  his  last,  and  to  labour 
day  by  day  along  the  noble  lines  which  he  had 
laid  down.  This  was  my  post  for  six  years,  one 
of  which,  however,  was  spent  in  Europe,  in  the 
hope  of  gaining  an  added  fitness  for  my  place. 

I  have  no  mind  to  set  down  here  a  record  of 
those  Antioch  years.  One  experiment  we  tried 
in  a  field  then  very  novel  and  looked  upon 
askance.     To-day  in  our  schools  and  universities 


The  College  Drama  71 

the  pageant  and  the  drama  play  a  large  part. 
Forty  years  ago  they  were  unknown  or  in  hiding, 
and  it  may  be  claimed  that  our  little  fresh-water 
college  bore  a  part  in  initiating  a  development 
that  has  become  memorable  and  widely  salutary. 
In  1872  I  wrote  out  the  story  of  our  attempt 
for  Mr.  Ho  wells,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  a  film 
which  may  appropriately  be  staged  among  my 
pictures. 

The  New  Wrinkle  at  Sweetbrier;  or,  The  Drama 
in  Colleges 

I  have  been  distressed,  dear  Fastidiosus,  by 
your  remonstrance  concerning  the  performance 
at  our  college  at  Sweetbrier  of  a  "  stage  play." 
You  have  heard  the  facts  rightly;  that  it  was 
given  under  the  superintendence  of  the  English 
professor,  the  evening  before  Commencement, 
"with  many  of  the  accessories  of  a  theatre." 
You  urge  that  it  is  unprecedented  to  have  at  a 
dignified  institution,  which  aims  at  a  high  stand- 
ard, under  the  superintendence  of  a  professor, 
such  a  performance;  that  it  excites  the  prejudices 
of  some  people  against  us;  and  you  quote  the 
sharp  remarks  of  David's  Harp,  the  organ  of  the 
Dunkers.  You  urge  that  such  things  can  be 
nothing  more  than  the  play  of  boys  and  girls, 
and  are  something  worse  than  mere  waste  of 
time,  for  they  set  young  people  to  thinking  of 
the  theatre,  which  is  irretrievably  sunk  and  only 


72  THe  Last  Leaf 

harmful.  In  your  character  of  trustee,  you  are 
sorry  it  has  been  done,  and  beg  that  it  may  not 
be  done  again. 

I  beg  you  to  listen  to  a  patient  stating  of  the 
case.     It  is  not  without  precedent.     When  you 
were  at  Worms,  in  Germany,  do  you  remember 
in  the  Luther  Memorial  the  superb  figure  of 
Eeuchlin,  on  one  of  the  outer  corners?     One  or 
two  of  the  statues  may  be  somewhat  grander, 
but  no  other  seemed  to  me  so  handsome,  as  it 
stood  colossal  on  its  pillar,  the  scholar's  gown 
falling  from  the  stately  shoulders,  and  the  face 
so  fine  there  in  the  bronze,  under  the  abundant 
hair  and  cap.     Eeuchlin  is  said  to  be  the  proper 
founder  of  the  German  drama.     Before  his  time 
there  had  been,  to  be  sure,  some  performing  of 
miracle-plays,  and  perhaps  things  of  a  different 
sort.     The  German  literary  historians,  however, 
make  it  an  era  when  Eeuchlin  came  as  professor 
to  Heidelberg,  and,  in  1497,  set  up  a  stage,  with 
students   for  actors,   at  the  house  of  Johann, 
Kammerer  von  Dalberg.     He  wrote  his  plays  m 
Latin.     If  you  wish,  I  can  send  you  their  titles. 
Each  act,  probably,  was  prefaced  by  a  synopsis 
in   German,   and  soon   translations   came   into 
vogue,  and  were  performed  as  well.     On  that 
little  strip  of  level  which  the   crags  and  the 
Neckar  make  so  narrow,  collected  then,  as  now, 
a  fair  concourse  of  bounding  youth.     One  can 
easily  fancy  how,  when  the  prototypes  of  the 
trim  Burschen  of  to-day  stepped  out  in  their 


In  Germany  73 

representation,  the  applause  sounded  across  to 
the  vineyards  about  the  Heiligenberg  and  Hirsch- 
gasse,  and  how  now  and  then  a  knight  and  a 
dame  frfun  the  court  of  the  Kurfurst  came  down 
the  Schlossberg  to  see  it  all.  What  Reuchlin 
began,  came  by  no  means  to  a  speedy  end.  In 
the  Jesuit  seminaries  in  Germany,  in  Italy  too, 
and  elsewhere,  as  the  Reformation  came  on,  I 
find  the  boys  were  acting  plays.  This  feature 
in  the  school  was  held  out  as  an  attraction  to 
win  students;  and  in  Prague  the  Fathers  them- 
selves wrote  dramas  to  satirise  the  Protestants, 
introducing  Luther  as  the  comic  figure.  But 
what  occurred  in  the  Protestant  world  was  more 
noteworthy.  As  the  choral  singing  of  the  school- 
boys affected  in  an  important  way  the  develop- 
ment of  music,  so  the  school-plays  had  much  to 
do  with  the  development  of  the  drama.  Read 
Gervinus  to  see  how  for  a  century  or  two  it  was 
the  schools  and  universities  that  remained  true 
to  a  tolerably  high  standard,  while  in  the  world 
at  large  all  nobler  ideals  were  under  eclipse.  It 
was  jocund  Luther  himself  who  took  it  under 
his  especial  sanction,  as  he  did  the  fiddle  and 
the  dance,  in  his  sweet  large-heartedness  finding 
Scriptural  precedents  for  it,  and  encouraging 
the  youths  who  came  trooping  to  Wittenberg  to 
relieve  their  wrestling  with  Aristotle  and  the 
dreary  controversy  with  an  occasional  play. 
Melancthon,  too,  gave  the  practice  encourage- 
ment, until  not  only  Wittenberg,  but  the  schools 


74  TKe  Last  Leaf 

of  Saxony  in  general,  and  Thuringia,  whose  hills 
were  in  sight,  surpassed  all  the  countries  of 
Germany  in  their  attention  to  plays.  In  Leipsic, 
Erfurt,  and  Magdeburg  comedies  were  Regularly 
represented  before  the  schoolmasters.  But  it 
was  at  the  University  of  Strassburg,  even  at  the 
time  when  the  unsmiling  Calvin  was  seeking 
asylum  there,  that  the  dramatic  life  of  the  Ger- 
man seminaries  found  a  splendid  culmination. 
Yearly,  in  the  academic  theatre,  took  place  a 
series  of  representations,  by  students,  of  mar- 
vellous pomp  and  elaboration.  The  school  and 
college  plays  were  of  various  characters.  Some- 
times they  were  from  Terence,  Plautus,  or  Aris- 
tophanes ;  sometimes  modifications  of  the  ancient 
mysteries,  meant  to  enforce  the  Evangelical 
theology;  sometimes  comedies  full  of  the  con- 
temporary life.  There  are  several  men  that  have 
earned  mention  in  the  history  of  German 
literature  by  writing  plays  for  students.  The 
representations  became  a  principal  means  for 
celebrating  great  occasions.  If  special  honour 
was  to  be  done  to  a  festival,  or  a  princely  visit 
was  expected,  the  market-place,  the  Rathhaus,  or 
the  church  was  prepared,  and  it  was  the  pro- 
fessor's or  the  schoolmaster's  duty  to  direct  the 
boys  in  their  performance  of  a  play.  We  get 
glimpses,  in  the  chronicles,  of  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  representations  took  place. 
The  magistrates,  even  the  courts,  lent  brilliant 
dresses.     One    old    writer     laments    that     the 


Schiller  at  School  75 

ignorant  people  have  so  little  sense  for  arts  of 
this  kind.  "Often  tumult  and  mocking  are 
heard,  for  it  is  the  greatest  joy  to  the  rabble 
if  the  spectators  fall  down  through  broken 
benches."  The  old  three-storied  stage  of  the 
mysteries  was  often  retained,  with  heaven  above, 
earth  in  the  middle  space,  and  hell  below;  where, 
according  to  the  stage  direction  of  the  Golden 
Legend,  "the  devils  walked  about  and  made  a 
great  noise."  Lazarus  is  described  as  repre- 
sented in  the  sixteenth  century  before  a  hotel, 
before  which  sat  the  rich  man  carousing,  while 
Abraham,  in  a  parson's  coat,  looked  out  of  an 
upper  window.  This  rudeness,  however,  belongs 
rather  to  the  Volks-comodie  than  the  Schul- 
comodie,  whose  adjuncts  were  generally  far 
more  rational,  and  sometimes  even  brilliant,  as 
in  the  Strassburg  representations.  It  was  only 
in  the  seminaries  that  art  was  preserved  from 
utter  decay.  One  may  trace  the  Schul-comddie 
until  far  down  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
in  the  last  mention  of  it  I  find  appears  an  in- 
teresting figure.  In  1780,  at  the  military  school 
in  Stuttgart  the  birthday  of  the  Duke  of  Wiir- 
temberg  was  celebrated  by  a  performance  of 
Goethe's  Clavigo.  The  leading  part  was  taken 
by  a  youth  of  twenty-one,  with  high  cheek- 
bones, a  broad,  low,  Greek  brow  above  straight 
eyebrows,  a  prominent  nose,  and  lips  nervous 
with  an  extraordinary  energy.  The  German 
narrator  says  he  played  the  part  "abominably, 


76  THe  Last  Leaf 

shrieking,  roaring,  unmannerly  to  a  laughable 
degree."  It  was  the  young  Schiller,  wild  as  a 
pythoness  upon  her  tripod,  with  the  Robbers, 
which  became  famous  in  the  following  year. 

But  I  do  not  mean,  Fastidiosus,  to  cite  only 
German  precedents,  nor  to  uphold  the  college 
drama  with  the  names  of  Reuchlin,  Melancthon, 
and  Luther  alone,  majestic  though  they  are.  In 
the  University  of  Paris  the  custom  of  acting 
plays  was  one  of  high  antiquity.  In  1392  the 
schoolboys  of  Angiers  performed  Robin  and 
Marian,  "  as  was  their  annual  custom " ;  and 
in  1477  the  scholars  of  Pontoise  represented  "  a 
certain  moralitie  or  farce,  as  is  their  custom." 
In  1558  the  comedies  of  Jacques  Grevin  were 
acted  at  the  College  of  Beauvais  at  Paris;  but 
it  is  in  the  next  century  that  we  come  upon 
the  most  interesting  case.  In  the  days  of  Louis 
XIV.  the  girls'  school  at  St.  Cyr,  of  which 
Madame  de  Maintenon  was  patroness,  was,  in 
one  way  and  another,  the  object  of  much  public 
attention.  Mademoiselle  de  Caylus,  niece  of 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  who  became  famous 
among  the  women  of  charming  wit  and  grace 
who  distinguished  the  time,  was  a  pupil  at  St. 
Cyr,  and  in  her  memoirs  gives  a  pleasant  sketch 
of  her  school  life.  With  the  rest,  "  Madame  de 
Brinon,"  she  says, 

first  superior  of  St.  Cyr,  loved  verse  and  the  drama ; 
and  in  default  of  the  pieces  of  Corneille  and  Racine, 
which  she  did   not  dare  to  have  represented,  she 


In  French  Schools  77 

composed  plays  herself.  It  is  to  her,  and  her  taste 
for  the  stage,  that  the  world  owes  Esther  and 
Athalie,  which  Racine  wrote  for  the  girls  of  St. 
Cyr.  Madame  de  Maintenon  wished  to  see  one  of 
Madame  de  Brinon's  pieces.  She  found  it  such  as 
it  was,  that  is  to  say,  so  bad  that  she  begged  to 
have  no  more  such  played,  and  that  instead  some 
beautiful  piece  of  Corneille  or  Racine  should  be 
selected,  choosing  such  as  contained  least  about 
love.  These  young  girls,  therefore,  undertook  the 
rendering  of  Cinna,  quite  passably  for  children  who 
had  been  trained  for  the  stage  only  by  an  old  nun. 
They  then  played  Andromaque;  and,  whether  it  was 
that  the  actresses  were  better  chosen,  or  gained  in 
grace  through  experience,  it  was  only  too  well  repre- 
sented for  Madame  de  Maintenon,  causing  her  to 
fear  that  this  amusement  would  fill  them  with  senti- 
ments the  reverse  of  those  which  she  wished  to  in- 
spire. However,  as  she  was  persuaded  that  amuse- 
ments of  this  sort  were  good  for  youth,  she  wrote 
to  Racine,  begging  him  to  compose  for  her,  in  his 
moments  of  leisure,  some  sort  of  moral  or  historic 
poem,  from  which  love  should  be  entirely  banished, 
and  in  which  he  need  not  believe  that  his  reputation 
was  concerned,  since  it  would  remain  buried  at  St. 
Cyr.  The  letter  threw  Racine  into  great  agitation. 
He  wished  to  please  Madame  de  Maintenon.  To 
refuse  was  impossible  for  a  courtier,  and  the  com- 
mission was  delicate  for  a  man  who,  like  him,  had 
a  great  reputation  to  sustain.  At  last  he  found  in 
the  subject  of  Esther  all  that  was  necessary  to 
please  the  Court. 

So   far   Mademoiselle  de  Caylus.     A  French 


78  The  Last  Leaf 

historian  of  literature  draws  a  pleasing  picture 
of  the  old  Racine  superintending  the  preparation 
of  Esther, 

giving  advice  full  of  sense  and  taste  on  the  manner 
of  reciting  his  verses,  never  breaking  their  harmony 
by  a  vulgar  diction,  nor  hurting  the  sense  by  a  wrong 
emphasis.  What  a  charm  must  the  verses  where 
Esther  recounts  the  history  of  her  triumph  over  her 
rivals  have  had  in  the  mouth  of  Mademoiselle  de 
Veillanne,  the  prettiest  and  most  graceful  of  the 
pupils  of  St.  Cyr!  How  grand  he  must  have  been, 
when,  with  that  noble  figure  which  Louis  XIV.  ad- 
mired, he  taught  Mademoiselle  de  Glapion,  whose 
voice  went  to  the  heart,  to  declaim  the  beautiful 
verses  of  the  part  of  Mordecai ! 

The  genius  of  Racine  glows  finely  in  Esther. 
In  the  choruses,  the  inspirations  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  framed  as  it  wTere  in  a  Greek  mould, 
give  impressive  relief  to  the  dialogue,  as  in 
Sophocles  and  iEschylus.  It  was  played  sev- 
eral times,  and  no  favour  was  more  envied  at 
the  Court  than  an  invitation  to  the  repre- 
sentations. The  literature  of  the  time  has  many 
allusions  to  them.  The  splendid  world,  in  all 
its  lace  and  powder,  crowded  to  the  quiet 
convent.  The  great  soldiers,  the  wits,  the  beauti- 
full  women  were  all  there.  The  king  and  Madame 
de  Maintenon  sat  in  stiff  dignity  in  the  fore- 
ground. The  appliances  were  worthy  of  the 
magnificent  Court.      In  Oriental  attire  of  silk 


In  English  ScKools  79 

sweeping  to  their  feet,  set  off  with  pearl  and 
gold,  the  loveliest  girls  of  France  declaimed  and 
sang  the  sonorous  verse.  It  is  really  one  of  the 
most  innocent  and  charming  pictures  that  has 
come  down  to  us  of  this  age,  when  so  much  was 
hollow,  pompous,  and  cruel. 

Hamlet  says  to  Polonius,  "  My  lord,  you 
played  once  in  the  university,  you  say."  To 
which  Polonius  replies,  "  That  I  did,  my  lord, 
and  was  accounted  a  good  actor.  I  did  enact 
Julius  Caesar.  I  was  killed  in  the  Capitol."  Do 
not  suppose,  Fastidiosus,  that  the  playing  of 
Polonius  was  any  such  light  affair  as  you  and 
I  used  to  be  concerned  in  up  in  the  fourth  story 
of  "  Stoughton,"  when  we  were  members  of  the 
Hasty  Pudding.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  in  con- 
vents and  churches,  flourished  the  mysteries; 
but,  says  Warton,  in  the  History  of  English 
Poetry,  as  learning  increased,  the  practice  of 
acting  plays  went  over  to  the  schools  and  uni- 
versities. Before  the  sixteenth  century  we  may 
find  traces  of  dramatic  vitality  among  the  great 
English  seminaries;  but  if  the  supposition  of 
Huber,  in  his  account  of  English  universities,  is 
correct,  the  real  founder  of  the  college  drama 
in  England  was  a  character  no  less  dignified 
than  its  founder  in  Germany.  Erasmus,  as  he 
sits  enthroned  in  a  scholar's  chair  in  the  market- 
place at  Rotterdam,  the  buildings  about  leaning 
on  their  insecure  foundations  out  of  the  per- 
pendicular, and  the  market-women,  with  their 


80  The  Last  Leaf 

apple-bloom  complexions,  crowding  around  him, 
shows  a  somewhat  withered  face  and  figure,  less 
genial  than  the  handsome  Heidelberg  professor 
as  he  stands  at  Worms.  But  it  was  Erasmus, 
probably,  who,  among  many  other  things  he  did 
while  in  England,  lent  an  important  impulse  to 
the  acting  of  plays  by  students.  He,  no  doubt, 
was  no  further  interested  than  to  have  master- 
pieces of  Greek  and  Latin  drama  represented, 
that  the  students  might  have  exercise  in  those 
languages;  but  before  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 
was  finished,  the  practice  was  becoming  pursued 
for  other  ends,  and  growing  in  importance. 
Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  long  supposed  to  be 
the  first  English  comedy,  was  first  acted  by 
students  at  Cambridge.  That  our  more  rollick- 
ing boys  had  their  counterparts  then,  we  may 
know  from  its  rousing  drinking-song,  which  the 
fellows  rang  out  at  the  opening  of  the  second 
act,  way  back  there  in  1551.  The  chorus  is  not 
yet  forgotten: 

"  Backe  and  side  go  bare,  go  bare, 
Booth  foot  and  hand  go  colde; 
But,  belly,  God  send  thee  good  ale  inoughe, 
Whether  it  be  new  or  olde! " 

For  the  most  part,  probably,  the  performances 
were  of  a  more  dignified  character  than  this. 
Among  the  statutes  of  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge, 1546,  there  is  one  entitled  de  prwfectu 
ludorum    qui   imperator   dicitur,    under    whose 


In  English  Schools  8 1 

direction  and  authority  Latin  comedies  are  to 
be  exhibited  in  the  hall  at  Christmas.  This 
"  imperator  "  must  be  a  master  of  arts,  and  the 
society  was  to  be  governed  by  a  set  of  laws 
framed  in  Latin  verse.  The  authority  of  this 
potentate  lasted  from  Christmas  to  Candlemas, 
during  which  time  six  spectacles  were  to  be 
represented.  Dr.  John  Dee,  a  prodigy. of  that 
century,  who  might  have  been  illustrious  like 
Bacon  almost,  but  who  wasted  his  later  years 
in  astrological  dreams,  in  his  younger  life,  while 
Greek  lecturer  at  Cambridge,  superintended  in 
the  refectory  of  the  college  the  representation 
of  the  Eiprjvrj  0f  Aristophanes,  with  no  mean 
stage  adjuncts,  if  we  may  trust  his  own  account. 
He  speaks  particularly  of  the  performance  of  a 
"Scarabeus,  his  flying  up  to  Jupiter's  palace 
with  a  man  and  his  basket  of  victuals  on  his 
back;  whereat  was  great  wondering  and  many 
vain  reports  spread  abroad  of  the  means  how  that 
was  effected."  The  great  Koger  Ascham,  too, 
has  left  an  indirect  testimony  to  the  splendour 
with  which  the  Cambridge  performances  at  this 
time  were  attended.  In  a  journey  on  the  Con- 
tinent, wishing  to  express  in  the  highest  terms 
his  sense  of  the  beauty  of  Antwerp,  he  can  say 
nothing  stronger  than  that  it  as  far  surpasses 
other  cities  as  the  refectory  of  St.  John's  Col- 
lege at  Cambridge,  when  adorned  for  the  Christ- 
mas plays,  surpasses  its  ordinary  appearance. 
On  these  occasions,  the  most  dignified  personages 


82  THe  Last  Leaf 

of  the  University  were  invited,  and  at  length,  as 
was  the  German  fashion,  the  representation  of 
plays  was  adopted  as  part  of  the  entertainment 
of  visitors.  In  1564,  Queen  Elizabeth  visited 
Cambridge,  and  the  picture  transmitted  to  us 
of  the  festivities  is  full  of  brilliant  lights.  With 
the  rest,  Rye  doctors  of  the  University  selected 
from  all  the  colleges  the  youths  of  best  appear- 
ance and  address,  who  acted  before  the  queen  a 
series  of  plays  of  varied  character,  sometimes 
grave,  sometimes  gay,  in  part  of  classic,  in  part 
of  contemporary  authorship.  The  theatre  for 
the  time  was  no  other  place  than  the  beautiful 
King's  College  chapel,  across  the  entire  width 
of  which  the  stage  was  built.  For  light,  the 
yeomen  of  the  royal  guard,  their  fine  figures  in 
brilliant  uniform,  stood  in  line  from  end  to  end 
of  the  chapel,  each  holding  a  torch.  It  was  a 
superb  scene,  no  doubt;  the  torches  throwing 
their  wavering  glare  against  the  tracery  and  the 
low,  pointed  arch  of  window  and  portal,  so 
beautiful  in  this  chapel,  in  the  ruins  of  Kenil- 
worth,  or  wherever  it  appears;  the  great  space 
filled  with  the  splendour  that  Roger  Ascham 
thought  so  wonderful;  and,  among  the  glitter, 
the  troop  of  handsome  youths  doing  their  best 
to  please  the  sovereign.  Froude  gives  a  story 
from  De  Silva,  the  Spanish  ambassador,  which 
reflects  so  well  the  character  of  the  time,  and 
shows  up  boyish  human  nature  with  such  amus- 
ing faithfulness,  that  I  cannot  omit  it.     When 


Qxieen  Elizabeth  at  tHe  Universities  83 

all  was  over,  the  students  would  not  let  well 
enough  alone,  but  begged  the  tired  queen  to  see 
one  more  play  of  their  own  devising,  which  they 
felt  sure  would  give  her  special  pleasure.  The 
queen,  however,  departed,  going  ten  miles  on  her 
journey  to  the  seat  of  one  of  her  nobility.  The 
persistent  boys  followed  her,  and  she  granted 
them  permission  to  perform  before  her  in  the 
evening.  What  should  the  unconscionable  dogs 
do  but  drag  in  the  bitter  trouble  of  the  time, 
and  heedlessly  trample  on  the  queen's  prejudices. 
The  actors  entered  dressed  like  the  bishops  of 
Queen  Mary,  who  were  then  in  prison.  Bonner 
carried  a  lamb,  at  which  he  rolled  his  eyes  and 
gnashed  his  teeth.  A  dog  brought  up  the  rear, 
carrying  the  Host  in  his  mouth.  What  further 
was  to  follow  no  one  can  say.  The  queen,  who 
was  never  more  than  half  a  Protestant,  and 
clung  to  the  mass  all  the  more  devoutly  because 
she  was  obliged  to  resign  so  much,  filled  the  air 
with  her  indignation.  She  swore  good  round 
oaths,  we  may  be  sure,  and  left  the  room  in  a 
rage.  The  lights  were  put  out,  and  the  students 
made  off  in  the  dark  as  they  could. 

The  history  of  the  drama  at  Oxford  has  epi- 
sodes of  equal  interest.  The  visitor  who  goes 
through  the  lovely  Christ  Church  meadows  to 
the  Isis  to  see  the  boats,  returning,  will  be  sure 
to  visit  the  refectory  of  Christ  Church.  The 
room  is  very  fine  in  its  proportions  and  decora- 
tion, and  hung  with  the  portraits  of  the  multi- 


84  THe  Last  Leaf 

tude  of  brilliant  men  who  in  their  young  days 
were  Christ  Church  men.  During  all  the  cen- 
turies that  the  rich  dark  stain  has  been  gather- 
ing upon  the  carved  oak  in  the  ceiling  and 
wainscot,  it  has  been  the  scene  of  banquets  and 
pageants  without  number,  at  which  the  most 
illustrious  characters  of  English  history  have 
figured.  I  doubt,  however,  if  any  of  its  associa- 
tions are  finer  than  those  connected  with  the 
student  plays  that  have  been  performed  here. 
Passing  over  occasions  of  this  kind  of  less  in- 
terest of  which  I  find  mention,  in  1566  Elizabeth 
visited  Oxford,  to  do  honour  to  whom  in  this  great 
hall  of  Christ  Church  plays  were  given.  Oxford 
was  determined  not  to  be  outdone  by  what  had 
happened  at  Cambridge  two  years  before.  From 
the  accounts,  the  delight  of  the  hearty  queen 
must  have  been  intense;  and  as  she  was  never 
afraid  to  testify  most  frankly  her  genuine  feel- 
ings, we  may  be  sure  the  Oxford  authorities  and 
their  pupils  must  have  presented  their  entertain- 
ments with  extraordinary  pomp.  The  plays,  as 
at  Cambridge,  were  of  various  character,  but  the 
one  that  gave  especial  pleasure  was  an  English 
piece  having  the  same  subject  as  the  Knighte's 
Tale  of  Chaucer,  and  called  Palamon  and 
Arcite.  It  would  be  pleasant  to  know  that  the 
poet  followed  as  far  as  possible  the  words  of 
Chaucer.  There  is  a  fine  incident  narrated  con- 
nected with  the  performance.  In  the  scene  of 
the  chase,  when 


Ring  James  I.  at  Oxford  85 

"  Theseus,  with  alle  joye  and  blys, 
With  his  Ypolita,  the  faire  queene, 
And  Emelye,  clothed  al  in  greene, 
On  hontyng  be  they  riden  ryally," 

a  "  cry  of  hounds  "  was  counterfeited  under  the 
windows  in  the  quadrangle.  The  students  pre- 
sent thought  it  was  a  real  chase,  and  were  seized 
with  a  sudden  transport  to  join  the  hunters.  At 
this,  the  delighted  queen,  sitting  in  stiff  ruff  and 
farthingale  among  her  maids  of  honour,  burst 
out  above  all  the  tumult  with  "Oh,  excellent! 
These  boys,  in  very  truth,  are  ready  to  leap  out 
of  the  windows  to  follow  the  hounds !  "  When 
the  play  was  over,  the  queen  called  up  the  poet, 
who  was  present,  and  the  actors,  and  loaded 
them  with  thanks  and  compliments. 

When,  forty  years  after,  in  1605,  the  dull 
James  came  to  Oxford,  the  poor  boys  had  a 
harder  time.  A  thing  very  noteworthy  hap- 
pened when  the  king  entered  the  city  in  his 
progress  from  Woodstock.  If  Warton's  notion 
is  correct,  scarcely  the  iron  cross  in  the  pave- 
ment that  marks  the  spot  where  the  bishops  were 
burned,  or  the  solemn  chamber  in  which  they  were 
tried,  yea,  scarcely  Guy  Fawkes's  lantern,  which 
they  show  you  at  the  Bodleian,  or  the  Brazen  Nose 
itself,  are  memorials  as  interesting  as  the  arch- 
way leading  into  the  quadrangle  of  St.  John's 
College,  under  whose  carving,  quaint  and  grace- 
ful, one  now  gets  the  lovely  glimpse  into  the 


86  The  Last  Leaf 

green  and  bloom  of  the  gardens  at  the  back.  At 
this  gate,  three  youths  dressed  like  witches  met 
the  king,  declaring  they  were  the  same  that  once 
met  Macbeth  and  Banquo,  prophesying  a  king- 
dom to  one  and  to  the  other  a  generation  of 
monarchs,  that  they  now  appeared  to  show  the 
confirmation  of  the  prediction.  Warton's  con- 
jecture is  that  Shakespeare  heard  of  this,  or  per- 
haps was  himself  in  the  crowd  that  watched  the 
boys  as  they  came  whirling  out  in  their  weird 
dance,  and  that  then  and  there  was  conceived 
what  was  to  become  so  mighty  a  product  of  the 
human  brain, — Macbeth. 

King  James,  however,  received  it  all  coldly. 
The  University,  kindled  by  the  traditions  of 
Elizabeth's  visit,  did  its  best.  Leland  gives  a 
glimpse  of  the  stage  arrangements  in  Christ 
Church  Hall.  Towards  the  end  "  was  a  scene 
like  a  wall,  painted  and  adorned  by  stately 
pillars,  which  pillars  would  turn  about,  by  reason 
whereof,  with  the  help  of  other  painted  cloths, 
their  stage  did  vary  three  times."  But  the  king 
liked  the  scholastic  hair-splitting  with  which  he 
was  elsewhere  entertained  better  than  the  plays. 
In  Christ  Church  Hall  he  yawned  and  even  went 
to  sleep,  saying  it  was  all  mere  childish  amuse- 
ment. In  fact,  the  poor  boys  had  to  put  up 
with  even  a  worse  rebuff;  the  king  spoke  many 
words  of  dislike,  and  when,  in  one  of  the  plays, 
a  pastoral,  certain  characters  came  in  somewhat 
scantily  attired,  the  queen  and  maids  of  honour 


At  Eton  87 

took  great  offence,  in  which  the  king,  who  was 
not  ordinarily  over-delicate,  concurred. 

The  practice  of  acting  plays  prevailed  in  the 
schools  as  well.  The  visitor  to  Windsor  will 
remember  in  what  peace,  as  seen  from  the  great 
tower,  beyond  the  smooth,  dark  Thames,  the 
buildings  of  Eton  lie  among  the  trees.  Cross- 
ing into  the  old  town  and  entering  the  school 
precincts,  where  the  stone  stairways  are  worn 
by  so  many  generations  of  young  feet,  and  where 
on  the  play-ground  the  old  elms  shadow  turf 
where  so  many  soldiers  and  statesmen  have  been 
trained  to  struggle  in  larger  fields,  there  is 
nothing  after  all  finer  than  the  great  hall.  In 
every  age  since  the  Avars  of  the  Roses,  it  has 
buzzed  with  the  boisterous  life  of  the  privileged 
boys  of  England,  who  have  come  up  afterward 
by  the  hundred  to  be  historic  men.  There  are 
still  the  fireplaces  with  the  monogram  of 
Henry  VI.,  the  old  stained  glass,  the  superb 
wood  carving,  the  dais  at  the  end.  If  there 
were  no  other  memory  connected  with  the  mag- 
nificent hall,  it  would  be  enough  that  here,  about 
1550,  was  performed  by  the  Eton  boys,  Ralph 
Roister  Bolster,  the  first  proper  English  comedy, 
written  by  Nicholas  Udal,  then  head-master,  for 
the  Christmas  holidays.  He  had  the  name  of 
being  a  stern  master,  because  old  Tusser  has  left 
it  on  record  that  Udal  whipped  him, — 

"  for  fault  but  small, 
or  none  at  all." 


88  TKe  Last  Leaf 

But  the  student  of  our  old  literature,  reading 
the  jolly  play,  will  feel  that,  though  he  could 
handle  the  birch  upon  occasion,  there  was  in 
him  a  fine  genial  vein.  This  was  the  first  Eng- 
lish comedy.  The  first  English  tragedy,  too, 
Gorboduc,  was  acted  first  by  students, — this 
time  students  of  law  of  the  Inner  Temple, — and 
the  place  of  performance  was  close  at  hand  to 
what  one  still  goes  to  see  in  the  black  centre 
of  the  heart  of  London,  those  blossoming  gardens 
of  the  Temple,  verdant  to-day  as  when  the  red- 
cross  knights  walked  in  them,  or  the  fateful  red 
and  white  roses  were  plucked  there,  or  the  voices 
of  the  young  declaimers  were  heard  from  them, 
rolling  out  the  turgid  lines  of  Sackville's  piece, 
the  somewhat  unpromising  day-spring  which  a 
glorious  sun-burst  was  to  succeed.  From  Lin- 
coln's Inn,  in  1613,  when  the  Princess  Elizabeth 
married  the  elector-palatine  and  went  off  to 
Heidelberg  Castle,  the  students  came  to  the 
palace  with  a  piece  written  by  Chapman,  and 
the  performance  cost  a  thousand  pounds. 

A  famed  contemporary  of  Udal  was  Richard 
Mulcaster,  head-master  of  St.  Paul's  school,  and 
afterward  of  Merchant  Taylors',  concerning 
whom  we  have,  from  delightful  old  Fuller,  this 
quaint  and  naive  description : 

In  a  morning  he  would  exactly  and  plainly  con- 
strue and  parse  the  lesson  to  his  scholars,  which 
done,  he  slept  his  hour  (custom  made  him  critical 
to  proportion  it)  in  his  desk  in  the  school;  but  woe 


At  Westminster  89 

be  to  the  scholar  that  slept  the  while.  Awaking,  he 
heard  them  accurately;  and  Atropos  might  be  per- 
suaded to  pity  as  soon  as  he  to  pardon  where  he 
found  just  fault.  The  prayers  of  cockering  mothers 
prevailed  with  him  just  as  much  as  the  requests  of 
indulgent  fathers,  rather  increasing  than  mitigating 
his  severity  on  their  off  ending  children. 

The  name  of  this  Rhadamanthus  of  the  birch 
occurs  twice  in  entries  of  Elizabeth's  pay- 
master, as  receiving  money  for  plays  acted 
before  her;  and  a  certain  proficiency  as  actors 
possessed  by  students  of  St.  John's  College  at 
Oxford  is  ascribed  to  training  given  by  old  Mul- 
caster  at  the  Merchant  Taylors'  school. 

But  no  one  of  the  great  English  public  schools 
has  enjoyed  so  long  a  fame  in  this  regard  as 
Westminster.  According  to  Staunton,  in  his 
Great*  schools  of  England,  Elizabeth  desired  to 
have  plays  acted  by  the  boys,  "  Quo  juventus  turn 
actioni  turn  pronunciation!  decenti  melius  se 
assuescat,"  that  the  youth  might  be  better  trained 
in  proper  bearing  and  pronunciation.  The  noted 
Bishop  Atterbury  wrote  to  a  friend,  Trelawney, 
Bishop  of  Winchester,  concerning  a  performance 
here  of  Trelawney's  son :  "  I  had  written  to  your 
lordship  again  on  Saturday,  but  that  I  spent  the 
evening  in  seeing  Phormio  acted  in  the  college 
chamber,  where,  in  good  truth,  my  lord,  Mr. 
Trelawney  played  Antipho  extremely  well,  and 
some  parts  he  performed  admirably."  In  1695, 
Dryden's  play  of  Cleomenes  was  acted.     Arch- 


90  The  Last  Leaf 

bishop  Markhain,  head-master  one  hundred  years 
ago,  gave  a  set  of  scenes  designed  by  Garrick. 
In  our  own  day,  Dr.  Williamson,  head-master  in 
1828,  drew  attention  in  a  pamphlet  to  the  proper 
costuming  of  the  performers ;  and  when,  in  1847, 
there  was  a  talk  of  abolishing  the  plays,  a 
memorial  signed  by  six  hundred  old  "West- 
minsters "  was  sent  in,  stating  it  as  their  "  firm 
and  deliberate  belief,  founded  on  experience  and 
reflection,  that  the  abolition  of  the  Westminster 
play  cannot  fail  to  prove  prejudicial  to  the  in- 
terests and  prosperity  of  the  school.'7  At  the 
present  time  the  best  plays  of  Plautus  and 
Terence  are  performed  at  Christmas  in  the 
school  dormitory. 

It  all  became  excessive,  and  in  Cromwell's 
time,  with  the  accession  of  the  Puritans  to 
power,  like  a  hundred  other  brilliant  traits  of 
the  old  English  life  from  whose  abuse  had  grown 
riot,  it  was  purged  away.  Ben  Jonson,  in  The 
Staple  of  Newes,  puts  into  the  mouth  of  a  sour 
character  a  complaint  which  no  doubt  was  be- 
coming common  in  that  day,  and  was  probably 
well  enough  justified. 

"  They  make  all  their  schollers  play-boyes !  Is  't 
not  a  fine  sight  to  see  all  our  children  made  enter- 
luders?  Doe  we  pay  our  money  for  this?  Wee 
send  them  to  learne  their  grammar  and  their  Terence 
and  they  learne  their  play-bookes.  Well  they  talk 
we  shall  have  no  more  parliaments,  God  blesse  us! 
But  an  we  have,  I  hope  Zeale-of-the-land    Buzzy, 


Milton  at  Cambridge  91 

and  my  gossip  Kabby  Trouble-Truth,  will  start  up 
and  see  we  have  painfull  good  ministers  to  keepe 
schoole,  and  catechise  our  youth ;  and  not  teach  'em 
to  speake  plays  and  act  fables  of  false  newes." 


Studying  this  rather  unexplored  subject,  one  gets 
many  a  glimpse  of  famous  characters  in  interest- 
ing relations.  Erasmus  says  that  Sir  Thomas 
More,  "  adolescens,  comoediolas  et  scripsit  et 
egit,"  and  while  a  page  with  Archbishop  More- 
ton,  as  plays  were  going  on  in  the  palace  during 
the  Christmas  holidays,  he  would  often,  showing 
his  schoolboy  accomplishment,  step  on  the  stage 
without  previous  notice,  and  exhibit  a  part  of 
his  own  which  gave  more  satisfaction  than  the 
whole  performance  besides. 

In  Leland's  report  of  the  theatricals  wThere 
King  James  behaved  so  ungraciously,  "  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  plays,"  he  says,  "  was  chiefly  con- 
ducted by  Mr.  Jones,  who  undertook  to  furnish 
them  with  rare  devices,  but  performed  very  little 
to  what  was  expected."  This  is  believed  to  have 
been  Inigo  Jones,  who  soon  was  to  gain  great 
fame  as  manager  of  the  Court  masques.  The 
entertainment  was  probably  ingenious  and  splen- 
did enough,  but  every  one  took  his  cue  from  the 
king's  pettishness,  and  poor  "  Mr.  Jones  "  had 
to  bear  his  share  of  the  ill-humour. 

In  1629  a  Latin  play  was  performed  at  Cam- 
bridge before  the  French  ambassador.  Among 
the  student  spectators  sat  a  youth  of  twenty, 


92  THe  Last  Leaf 

with  long  locks  parted  in  the  middle  falling 
upon  his  doublet,  and  the  brow  and  eyes  of  the 
god  Apollo,  who  curled  his  lip  in  scorn,  and 
signalised  himself  by  his  stormy  discontent. 
Here  is  his  own  description  of  his  conduct :  "  I 
was  a  spectator ;  they  thought  themselves  gallant 
men,  and  I  thought  them  fools ;  they  made  sport, 
and  I  laughed;  they  mispronounced,  and  I  mis- 
liked  ;  and  to  make  up  the  Atticism,  they  were  out 
and  I  hissed."  It  was  the  young  Milton,  in  the 
year  in  which  he  wrote  the  Hymn  on  the  Nativity. 

Do  I  need  to  cite  other  precedents  for  the  pro- 
cedure at  the  Sweetbrier?  I  grant  you  it  can- 
not be  done  from  the  practice  of  American  col- 
leges. The  strictest  form  of  Puritanism  stamped 
itself  too  powerfully  upon  our  New  England  in- 
stitutions at  their  foundation,  and  has  affected 
too  deeply  the  newer  seminaries  elsewhere  in 
the  country,  to  make  it  possible  that  the  drama 
should  be  anything  but  an  outlaw  here.  Never- 
theless, at  Harvard,  Yale,  and  probably  every 
considerable  college  of  the  country,  the  drama 
has  for  a  long  time  led  a  clandestine  life  in 
secret  student  societies,  persecuted  or  at  best 
ignored  by  the  college  government, — an  unwhole- 
some weed  that  deserved  no  tending,  if  it  was 
not  to  be  at  once  uprooted. 

I  do  not  advocate,  Fastidiosus,  a  return  to  the 
ancient  state  of  things,  which  I  doubt  not  was 
connected  with  many  evils ;  but  is  there  not  rea- 
son to  think  a  partial  revival  of  the  old  customs 


Lessons  of  tHe  Drama  93 

would  be  worth  while?  It  was  not  for  mirth 
merely  that  the  old  professors  and  teachers 
countenanced  the  drama.  To  the  editors  of 
David's  Harp  I  have  sent  this  passage  from 
Milton,  noblest  among  the  Puritans,  and  have 
besought  them  to  lay  it  before  their  consistory: 
"  Whether  eloquent  and  graceful  incitements, 
instructing  and  bettering  the  nation  at  all  oppor- 
tunities, not  only  in  pulpits,  but  after  another 
persuasive  method,  in  theatres,  porches,  or  what- 
ever place  or  way,  may  not  win  upon  the  people 
to  receive  both  recreation  and  instruction,  let 
them  in  authority  consult.'-  The  German  school- 
masters and  professors  superintended  their  boys 
in  the  representation  of  religious  plays  to  in- 
struct them  in  the  theology  which  they  thought 
all-important;  in  the  performance  of  Aristo- 
phanes and  Lucian,  Plautus  and  Terence,  mainly 
in  the  hope  of  improving  them  in  Greek  and 
Latin:  and  when  the  plays  were  in  the  ver- 
nacular, it  was  often  to  train  their  taste,  man- 
ners, and  elocution.  Erasmus  and  the  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  authorities  certainly  had  the 
same  ideas  as  the  Continental  scholars.  So  the 
English  schoolmasters  in  general,  who  also  man- 
aged in  the  plays  to  give  useful  hints  in  all  ways. 
For  instance,  Nicholas  Udal,  in  the  ingenious 
letter  in  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  which  is  either 
loving  or  insulting  according  to  the  position  of 
a  few  commas  or  periods,  must  have  meant  to 
enforce  the  doctrine  of  Chaucer's  couplet : 


94  TKe  Last  Leaf 

"  He  that  pointeth  ill, 
A  good  sentence  may  oft  spill." 

Madame  de  Maintenon  was  persuaded  that 
amusements  of  this  sort  have  a  value,  "  impart- 
ing grace,  teaching  a  polite  pronunciation,  and 
cultivating  the  memory  ";  and  Racine  commends 
the  management  of  St.  Cyr,  where  "  the  hours 
of  recreation,  so  to  speak,  are  put  to  profit  by 
making  the  pupils  recite  the  finest  passages  of 
the  best  poets."  Here  is  the  dramatic  instinct, 
almost  universal  among  young  people,  and  which 
has  almost  no  chance  to  exercise  itself,  except 
in  the  performance  of  the  farces  to  which  we 
are  treated  in  "  private  theatricals."  Can  it  not 
be  put  to  a  better  use?  It  would  be  a  cumbrous 
matter  to  represent  or  listen  to  the  Aulularia, 
or  the  Miles  Gloriosus,  or  the  Eiptfrriy  in  which 
Dr.  Dee  and  his  Scarabeus  figured  so  success- 
fully. The  world  is  turned  away  from  that; 1  but 
here  is  the  magnificent  wealth  of  our  own  old 
dramatic  literature,  in  which  is  contained  the 
richest  poetry  of  our  language.  It  was  never 
intended  to  be  read,  but  to  be  heard  in  living 
presentment.  For  the  most  part  it  lies  almost 
unknown,  except  in  the  case  of  Shakespeare,  and 
him  the  world  knows  far  too  little.  Who  does 
not  feel  what  a  treasure  in  the  memory  are  pas- 
sages  of  fine  poetry  committed  early   in   life? 

1  The   developments  of  the  last  forty  years  show  this 
judgment  to  be  erroneous. 


TTHe  Proficiency  of  Students  95 

Who  can  doubt  the  value  to  the  bearing,  the 
fine  address,  the  literary  culture  of  a  youth  of 
either  sex  that  might  come  from  the  careful 
study  and  the  attempt  to  render  adequately  a 
fine  conception  of  some  golden  writer  of  our 
golden  age,  earnestly  made,  if  only  partially 
successful? 

I  say  only  partially  successful,  but  can  you 
doubt  the  capacity  of  our  young  people  to  render 
in  a  creditable  way  the  conceptions  of  a  great 
poet?  Let  us  look  at  the  precedents  again. 
When  Mademoiselle  de  Caylus,  in  her  account 
of  St.  Cyr,  speaks  of  the  representation  of 
Andromaque,  she  writes,  "  It  was  only  too  well 
done."  And  prim  Madame  de  Main  tenon  wrote 
to  Racine:  "  Our  young  girls  have  played  it  so 
well  they  shall  play  it  no  more";  begging  him 
to  write  some  moral  or  historic  poem.  Hence 
came  the  beautiful  masterpiece  Esther,  to  which 
the  young  ladies  seem  to  have  done  the  fullest 
justice,  for  listen  to  the  testimony.  The  bril- 
liant Madame  de  Lafayette  wrote :  "  There  wTas 
no  one,  great  or  small,  that  did  not  want  to  go, 
and  this  mere  drama  of  a  convent  became  the 
most  serious  affair  of  the  court."  That  the 
admiration  was  not  merely  feigned  because  it 
was  the  fashion,  here  is  the  testimony  of  a 
woman  of  the  finest  taste,  Madame  de  Sevigne, 
given  in  her  intimate  letters  to  her  daughter, 
who,  in  these  confidences,  spared  no  one  who 
deserved  criticism : 


96  THe  Last  Leaf 

The  king  and  all  the  Court  are  charmed  with 
Esther.  The  prince  has  wept  over  it.  I  cannot  tell 
you  how  delightful  the  piece  is.  There  is  so  perfect 
a  relation  between  the  music,  the  verses,  the  songs, 
and  the  personages,  that  one  seeks  nothing  more. 
The  airs  set  to  the  words  have  a  beauty  which  can- 
not be  borne  without  tears,  and  according  to  one's 
taste  is  the  measure  of  approbation  given  to  the 
piece.  The  king  addressed  me  and  said,  "  Madame, 
I  am  sure  you  have  been  pleased."  I,  without  being 
astonished,  answered,  "  Sire,  I  am  charmed.  What 
I  feel  is  beyond  words."  The  king  said  to  me, 
"  Racine  has  much  genius."  I  said  to  him,  "  Sire, 
he  has  much,  but  in  truth  these  young  girls  have 
much  too;  they  enter  into  the  subject  as  if  they 
had  done  nothing  else."  "  Ah !  as  to  that,"  said  he, 
"  it  is  true."  And  then  his  Majesty  went  away  and 
left  me  the  object  of  envy. 

Racine  himself  says  in  the  Preface  to  Esther: 

The  young  ladies  have  declaimed  and  sung  this 
work  with  so  much  modesty  and  piety,  it  has  not 
been  possible  to  keep  it  shut  up  in  the  secrecy  of 
the  institution ;  so  that  a  diversion  of  young  people 
has  become  a  subject  of  interest  for  all  the  Court ; 

and  what  is  still  more  speaking,  lie  wrote  at  once 
the  Athalie,  "  la  chef  d'oeuvre  de  la  poesie  fran- 
chise," in  the  judgment  of  the  French  critics,  to  be 
rendered  by  the  some  young  tyros.  Wen,  in  1556, 
in  Christ  Church  Hall,  Palamon  and  Arcite  was 
finished,  outspoken  Queen  Bess,  with  her  frank 
eyes  full  of  pleasure,  declared  "  that  Palamon 


THe  Drama  at  A.ntiocH  97 

must  have  been  in  love  indeed.  Arcite  was  a 
right  martial  knight,  having  a  swart  and  manly 
countenance,  yet  like  a  Venus  clad  in  armour." 
To  the  son  of  the  dean  of  Christ  Church,  the 
boy  of  fourteen,  who  played  Emilie  in  the  dress 
of  a  princess,  her  compliment  was  still  higher. 
It  was  a  present  of  eight  guineas, — for  the 
penurious  sovereign,  perhaps,  the  most  emphatic 
expression  of  approval  possible. 

Shall  I  admit  for  a  moment  that  our  American 
young  folks  have  less  grace  and  sensibility  than 
the  French  girls,  and  the  Oxford  youths  who 
pleased  Elizabeth?  Your  face  now,  Fastidiosus, 
wears  a  frown  like  that  of  Rhadamanthus ;  but 
I  remember  our  Hasty-Pudding  days,  when  you 
played  the  part  of  a  queen,  and  behaved  in  your 
disguise  like  Thor,  in  the  old  saga,  when  he  went 
to  Riesenheim  in  the  garb  of  Freya,  and  honest 
giants,  like  Thrym,  were  frightened  back  the 
whole  width  of  the  hall.  Well,  I  do  not  censure 
it,  and  I  do  not  believe  you  recall  it  with  a  sigh ; 
and  the  reminiscence  emboldens  me  to  ask  you 
whether  it  would  not  be  still  better  if  our  dear 
Harvard,  say  (the  steam  of  the  pudding  infects 
me  through  twenty  years),  among  the  many  new 
wrinkles  she  in  her  old  age  so  appropriately  con- 
tracts, should  devote  an  evening  of  Commence- 
ment-time to  a  performance,  by  the  students, 
under  the  sanction  and  direction  of  professors, 
of  some  fine  old  masterpiece? 

At  our  little  Sweetbrier  we  have  young  men 


98  The  Last  Leaf 

and  young  women  together,  as  at  Oberlin,  An- 
tioch,  and  Massachusetts  normal  schools.  I  have 
no  doubt  our  Hermione,  when  we  gave  the 
Winter's  Tale,  had  all  the  charm  of  Mademoiselle 
de  Veillanne,  who  played  Esther  at  St.  Cyr.  I 
have  no  doubt  our  Portia,  in  the  Merchant  of 
Venice,  in  the  trial  scene,  her  fine  stature  and 
figure  robed  in  the  doctor's  long  silk  gown,  which 
fell  to  her  feet,  and  her  abundant  hair  gathered 
out  of  sight  into  an  ample  velvet  cap,  so  that 
she  looked  like  a  most  wise  and  fair  young 
judge,  recited 

"  The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strained," 

in  a  voice  as  thrilling  as  that  in  which  Made- 
moiselle de  Glapion  gave  the  part  of  Mordecai. 
I  am  sure  Queen  Elizabeth  would  think  our 
young  cavaliers,  well-knit  and  brown  from  the 
baseball-field,  "  right  martial  knights,  having 
swart  and  manly  countenances."  If  she  could 
have  seen  our  Antoninus,  when  we  gave  the  act 
from  Massinger's  most  sweet  and  tender  tragedy 
of  the  Virgin  Martyr,  or  the  noble  Csesar,  in 
our  selections  from  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's 
False  One,  she  would  have  been  as  ready  with 
the  guineas  as  she  was  in  the  case  of  the  son 
of  the  dean  of  Christ  Church. 

Our  play  at  the  last  Commencement  was  Much 
Ado  about  Nothing.  It  was  selected  six  months 
before,  and  studied  with  the  material  in  mind, 
the  students  in   the   literature  class,   available 


THe  Drama  at  .AntiocH  99 

for  the  different  parts.  What  is  there,  thought 
I,  in  Beatrice — sprightliness  covering  intense 
womanly  feeling — that  our  vivacious,  healthful 
Ruth  Brown  cannot  master;  and  what  in  Bene- 
dick, her  masculine  counterpart,  beyond  the 
power  of  Moore  to  conceive  and  render?  It  is 
chiefly  girlish  beauty  and  simple  sweetness  that 
Hero  requires,  so  she  shall  be  Edith  Grey. 
Claudio,  Leonato,  Don  John,  Pedro, — we  have 
clean-limbed,  presentable  fellows  that  will  look 
and  speak  them  all  well;  and  as  for  lumbering 
Dogberry,  Abbot,  with  his  fine  sense  of  the 
ludicrous,  will  carry  it  out  in  the  best  manner. 
A  dash  of  the  pencil  here  and  there  through  the 
lines  where  Shakespeare  was  suiting  his  own  time, 
and  not  the  world  as  it  was  to  be  after  three 
hundred  refining  years,  and  the  marking  out  of 
a  few  scenes  that  could  be  spared  from  the 
action,  and  the  play  was  ready;  trimmed  a  little, 
but  with  not  a  whit  taken  from  its  sparkle  or 
pathos,  and  all  its  lovelier  poetry  untouched. 

Then    came    long    weeks    of    drill.      In    the 
passage, 

"  O  my  lord, 
When  you  went  onward  to  this  ended  action, 
I  looked  upon  her  with  a  soldier's  eye,"  etc., 

Claudio  caught  the  fervour  and  softness  at  last, 
and  seemed  (it  would  have  pleased  Queen  Bess 
better  than  Madame  de  Maintenon)  like  Pala- 
mon,   in   love   indeed.     Ursula   and   Hero    rose 


ioo  The  Last  Leaf 

easily  to  the  delicate  poetry  of  the  passages 
that  begin, 

"  The  pleasantest  angling  is  to  see  the  fish 
Cut  with  her  golden  oars  the  silver  stream," 

and 

"  Look  where  Beatrice  like  a  lapwing  runs." 

Pedro  got  to  perfection  his  turn  and  gesture  in 

"  The  wolves  have  preyed ;  and  look,  the  gentle  day, 
Before  the  wheels  of  Phoebus,  round  about 
Dapples  the  drowsy  east  with  spots  of  gray." 

With  the  rough  comedy  of  Dogberry  and  the 
watchmen,  that  foils  so  well  the  sad  tragedy  of 
poor  Hero's  heart-breaking,  and  contrasts  in  its 
blunders  with  the  diamond-cut-diamond  dialogue 
of  Benedick  and  Beatrice,  there  was  less  diffi- 
culty. From  first  to  last,  it  was  engrossing 
labour,  as  hard  for  the  trainer  as  the  trained, 
yet  still  delightful  work;  for  what  is  a  con- 
scientious manager,  but  an  artist  striving  to  per- 
fect a  beautiful  dramatic  picture?  The  different 
personages  are  the  pieces  for  his  mosaic,  who,  in 
emphasis,  tone,  gesture,  by-play,  must  be  carved 
and  filed  until  there  are  no  flaws  in  the  joining, 
and  the  shading  is  perfect.  But  all  was  ready 
at  last,  from  the  roar  of  Dogberry  at  the  speech 
of  Conrade, 

"  Away !  you  're  an  ass !  you  're  an  ass!  " 


THe  Drama  at  AntiacK       ;       *0i 

to  the  scarcely  articulate  agony  of  Hero  when 
she  sinks  to  the  earth  at  her  lover's  sudden 
accusation, 

"  O  Heavens !  how  am  I  beset ! 
What  kind  of  catechising  call  you  this?" 

I  fancy  you  ask,  rather  sneeringly,  as  to  our 
scenery  and  stage  adjuncts.  Once,  in  the  great 
court  theatre  at  Munich,  I  saw  Wagner's  Rhein- 
Qold.  The  king  was  present,  and  all  was  done 
for  splendour  that  could  be  done  in  that  centre 
of  art.  When  the  curtain  rose,  the  whole  great 
river  Rhine  seemed  to  be  flowing  before  you 
across  the  stage,  into  the  side  of  whose  flood 
you  looked  as  one  looks  through  the  glass  side 
of  an  aquarium.  At  the  bottom  were  rocks  in 
picturesque  piles;  and,  looking  up  through  the 
tide  to  the  top,  as  a  diver  might,  the  spectator 
saw  the  surface  of  the  river,  with  the  current 
rippling  forward  upon  it,  and  the  sunlight  just 
touching  the  waves.  Through  the  flood  swam 
the  daughters  of  the  Rhine,  sweeping  fair  arms 
backward  as  they  floated,  their  drapery  trailing 
heavy  behind  them,  darting  straight  as  arrows, 
or  winding  sinuously,  from  bottom  to  top,  from 
side  to  side,  singing  wildly  as  the  Lorelei.  The 
scene  changed,  and  it  was  the  depths  of  the 
earth,  red-glowing  and  full  of  gnomes.  And  a 
third  time,  after  a  change,  you  saw  from  moun- 
tain-tops the  city  which  the  giants  had  built  in 
the  heavens  for  the  gods, — a  glittering  dome  or 


102  THe  Last  Leaf 

pinnacle  now  and  then  breaking  the  line  of  white 
palaces,  now  and  then  a  superb  cloud  floating 
before  it,  until,  at  last,  a  mist  seemed  to  rise 
from  valleys  below,  wrapping  it  little  by  little, 
till  all  became  invisible  in  soft  gradations  of 
vapoury  gloom.  I  shall  never  again  see  anything 
like  that,  where  an  art-loving  court  subsidises 
heavily  scene-painter  and  machinist;  but  for  all 
that,  is  it  wise  to  have  only  sneers  for  what 
can  be  brought  to  pass  with  more  modest  means? 
Our  hall  at  Sweetbrier  is  as  large  as  the  Christ 
Church  refectory,  and  handsomely  proportioned 
and  decorated.  A  wide  stage  runs  across  the 
end.  We  found  some  ample  curtains  of  crim- 
son, set  off  with  a  heavy  yellow  silken  border  of 
quite  rich  material,  which  had  been  used  to  drape 
a  window  that  had  disappeared  in  the  course  of 
repairs.  This,  stretched  from  side  to  side,  made 
a  wall  of  brilliant  colour  against  the  gray  tint 
of  the  room ;  and  possibly  Roger  Ascham,  seeing 
our  audience-room  before  and  after  the  hanging 
of  it,  might  have  had  a  thought  of  Antwerp.  The 
stage  is  the  one  thing  in  the  world  privileged 
to  deceive.  The  most  devoted  reader  of  Ruskin 
can  tolerate  shams  here.  The  costumes  were  de- 
vised with  constant  reference  to  Charles  Knight, 
and,  to  the  eye,  were  of  the  gayest  silk,  satin, 
and  velvet.  There  was,  moreover,  a  profusion 
of  jewels,  which,  for  all  one  could  see,  sparkled 
with  all  the  lustre  of  the  great  Florentine  dia- 
mond, as  you  see  it  suspended  above  the  imperial 


The  Drama  at  AntiocH  103 

crowns  in  the  Austrian  Schatz-Kammer  at 
Vienna.  The  contrasts  of  tint  were  well  attended 
to.  Pedro  was  in  white  and  gold,  Claudio  in 
blue  and  silver,  Leonato  in  red;  while  our 
handsome  Benedick,  a  youth  of  dark  Italian 
favour,  in  doublet  of  orange,  a  broad  black 
velvet  sash,  and  scarlet  cloak,  shone  like  a  bird 
of  paradise. 

There  was  a  garden-scene,  in  the  foreground 
of  which,  where  the  eyes  of  the  spectators  were 
near  enough  to  discriminate,  were  rustic  baskets 
with  geraniums,  fuchsias,  and  cactuses,  to  give 
a  southern  air.  In  the  middle  distance,  armfuls 
of  honeysuckle  in  full  bloom  wTere  brought  in 
and  twined  about  white  pilasters.  There  was 
an  arbour  overhung  with  heavy  masses  of  the 
trumpet-creeper.  A  tall  column  or  two  sur- 
mounted with  graceful  garden-vases  were  cov- 
ered about  with  raspberry-vines,  the  stems  of 
brilliant  scarlet  showing  among  the  green.  A 
thick  clump  of  dogwood,  whose  large  white  blos- 
soms could  easily  pass  for  magnolias,  gave  back- 
ground. The  green  wTas  lit  with  showy  colour 
of  every  sort, — handfuls  of  nasturtiums,  now  and 
then  a  peony,  larkspurs  for  blue,  patches  of 
poppies,  and  in  the  garden-vases  high  on  the 
pillars  (the  imposition!)  clusters  of  pink  holly- 
hocks which  were  meant  to  pass  for  oleander- 
blossoms,  and  did,  still,  wet  with  the  drops  of  the 
afternoon  shower,  which  had  not  dried  away  when 
all  was  in  place.     When  it  comes  to  rain  and  dew- 


104  The  Last  Leaf 

drops,  dear  Dr.  Holmes,  a  "  fresh-water  college  " 
has  an  advantage.  First,  it  was  given  under  gas ; 
then,  the  hall  being  darkened,  a  magnesium-light 
gave  a  moon-like  radiance,  in  which  the  dew  on 
the  buds  glistened,  and  the  mignonette  seemed 
to  exhale  a  double  perfume,  and  a  dreamy  melody 
of  Mendelssohn  suug  by  two  sweet  girl- voices 
floated  out  about  the  "  pleached  bower,"  like  a 
song  of  nightingales.  Then  toward  the  end 
came  the  scene  of  the  chapel  and  Hero's  tomb. 
Xo  lovelier  form  was  ever  sculptured  than  that 
of  the  beautiful  Q:  een  Louisa  of  Prussia,  as  she 
lies  in  the  mausoleum  at  Charlottenburg,  carved 
by  Rauch,  asleep  on  the  tomb  in  white  purity. 
To  the  eye,  our  Hero's  tomb  was  just  such  a 
block  of  spotless  marble  seen  against  a  back- 
ground of  black,  with  just  such  a  fair  figure 
recumbent  upon  it,  whose  palms  and  lids  and 
draping  the  chisel  of  an  artist  seemed  to  have 
folded  and  closed  and  hung, — all  idealised  again 
by  the  magic  of  the  magnesium-light.  As  the 
crimson  curtain  was  drawn  apart,  an  organ 
sounded,  and  a  far-away  choir  sent  into  the 
hush  the  Ave  Verum  of  Mozart,  low-breathed 
and  solemn. 

It  was  not  Munich,  Fasti diosus.  They  were 
American  young  men  and  young  women,  with 
no  resources  but  those  of  a  rural  college,  and 
such ,  as  their  own  taste  and  the  woods  and 
gardens  could  furnish;  but  the  young  men  were 
shapely  and  intelligent,  and  the  young  women 


THe  Drama  at  AntiocH  105 

had  grace  and  brightness;  their  hearts  were  in 
it,  and  in  the  result  surely  there  was  a  measure 
of  "  sweetness  and  light "  for  them  and  those 
who  beheld. 

You  fear  it  may  beget  in  young  minds  a  taste 
for  the  theatre,  now  hopelessly  given  over  in 
great  part  to  abominations.  Why  not  a  taste 
that  will  lift  them  above  the  abominations?  Old 
Joachim  Greff,  schoolmaster  at  Dessau  in  1545, 
who  has  a  place  in  the  history  of  German  poetry, 
has  left  it  on  record  that  he  trained  his  scholars 
to  render  noble  dramas  in  the  conscientious  hope 
"  that  a  little  spark  of  art  might  be  kept  alive 
in  the  schools  under  the  ashes  of  barbarism." 
"  And  this  little  spark,"  says  Gervinus,  "  did 
these  bold  men,  indeed,  through  two  hundred 
years,  keep  honestly  until  it  could  again  break 
out  into  flame."  Instead  of  fearing  the  evil  re- 
sult, rather  would  I  welcome  a  revival  of  what 
Warton  calls  "  this  very  liberal  exercise."  Were 
Joachim  Greffs  masters  in  our  high  schools  and 
in  the  English  chairs  in  our  colleges,  we  might 
now  and  then  catch  a  glimpse  of  precious  things 
at  present  hidden  away  in  never-opened  store- 
houses, and  see  something  done  toward  the 
development  of  a  taste  that  should  drive  out 
the  opera-boujfe. 

Here,  at  the  end,  Fastidiosus,  is  what  I  now 
shape  in  mind.  Hippolyte  Taine,  in  one  of  his 
rich  descriptions,  thus  pictures  the  perform- 
ance of  a  masque: 


io6  The  Last  Leaf 

The  elite  of  the  kingdom  is  there  upon  the  stage, 
the  ladies  of  the  court,  the  great  lords,  the  queen, 
in  all  the  splendour  of  their  rank  and  their  pride,  in 
diamonds,  earnest  to  display  their  luxury  so  that  all 
the  brilliant  features  of  the  nation's  life  are  concen- 
trated in  the  price  they  give,  like  gems  in  a  casket. 
What  adornment!  What  profusion  of  magnificence! 
What  variety !  WThat  metamorphoses !  Gold  sparkles, 
jewels  emit  light,  the  purple  draping  imprisons 
within  its  rich  folds  the  radiance  of  the  lustres. 
The  light  is  reflected  from  shining  silk.  Threads 
of  pearl  are  spread  in  rows  upon  brocades  sewed 
with  thread  of  silver.  Golden  embroideries  inter- 
twine in  capricious  arabesques,  costumes,  jewels, 
appointments  so  extraordinarily  rich  that  the  stage 
seems  a  mine  of  glory. 

The  fashionable  world  of  our  time  has  little 
taste  for  such  pleasures.  This  old  splendour 
we  cannot  produce;  but  the  words  which  the 
magnificent  lords  and  ladies  spoke  to  one  an- 
other as  they  blazed,  were  those  that  make  up 
the  Poetry  of  Fletcher's  Faithful  Shepherdess, 
Ben  Jonson's  Sad  Shepherd,  and,  finest  of  all, 
the  Comus  of  Milton.  They  are  the  most  match- 
less frames  of  language  in  which  sweet  thoughts 
and  fancies  were  ever  set.  After  all,  before  this 
higher  beauty,  royal  pomp  even  seems  only  a 
coarse  excrescence,  and  all  would  be  better  if 
the  accessories  of  the  rendering  were  very  simple. 
Already  in  my  mind  is  the  grove  for  Comus 
designed;  the  mass  of  green  which  shall  stand 
in  the  centre,  the  blasted  trunk  that  shall  rise 


Milton's  Comus  107 

for  contrast  to  one  side,  and  the  vine  that  shall 
half  conceal  the  splintered  summit,  the  banks  of 
wild-flowers  that  shall  be  transferred,  the  light 
the  laboratory  shall  yield  us  to  make  all  seem 
as  if  seen  through  enchanter's  incense.  I  have 
in  mind  the  sweet-voiced  girl  who  shall  be  the 
lost  lady  and  sing  the  invocation  to  Sabrina; 
the  swart  youth  who  shall  be  the  magician  and 
say  the  lines, 

"  At  every  fall,  smoothing  the  raven  down 
Of  darkness  till  it  smiled"; 

and  the  golden-haired  maid  who  shall  glide  in 
and  out  in  silvery  attire,  as  the  attendant  spirit. 
Come,  Fastidiosus, — I  shall  invite  too  the  editors 
of  David's  Harp, — and  you  shall  all  own  the 
truth  of  Milton's  own  words,  "  that  sanctity  and 
virtue  and  truth  herself  may  in  this  wise  be 
elegantly  dressed,"  when  the  attendant  spirit 
recites : 

"  Now  my  task  is  smoothly  done, 
I  can  fly  or  I  can  run 
Quickly  to  the  green  earth's  end, 
Where  the  bowed  welkin  low  doth  bend; 
And  from  thence  can  soar  as  soon 
To  the  corners  of  the  moon. 
Mortals  that  would  follow  me, 
Love  virtue ;  she  alone  is  free, 
She  can  teach  ye  how  to  climb 
Higher  than  the  sphery  chime ; 
Or  if  virtue  feeble  were, 
Heaven  itself  would  stoop  to  her." 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  GIANT  IN  THE  SPIKED  HELMET 

IN  January  of  1870,  having  decided  to  teach 
rather  than  preach,  I  embarked  for  Ger- 
many to  enjoy  a  year  of  foreign  study.  Like 
Western  professors  in  general  (to  borrow  the 
witticism  of  President  Eliot)  I  occupied  not 
so  much  a  chair  as  a  sofa,  and  felt  that  I 
needed  enlargement  for  the  performance  of  my 
functions. 

I  think  I  saw  a  certain  caricature  first  in 
Munich  at  the  end  of  July,  then  in  two  or  three 
Swiss  cities,  then  in  Paris  at  the  end  of  August, 
then  in  Brussels  and  London;  for  it  was  popular, 
and  the  print-shops  had  it  everywhere.  It  was 
a  map  of  Europe  where  the  different  countries 
were  represented  by  comical  figures,  each  meant 
to  hit  off  the  pecularities  of  the  nation  it  stood 
for,  according  to  popular  apprehension.  For 
Prussia  there  was  an  immense  giant,  one  of 
whose  knees  was  on  the  stomach  of  Austria 
represented  as  a  lank  figure  utterly  prostrate, 
while  the  other  foot  threatened  to  crush  South- 
western Germany.     One  hand  menaced  France, 

1 08 


A.  Good  Caricature  109 

whose  outline  the  designer  had  managed  to  give 
rudely  in  the  figure  of  a  Zouave  in  a  fierce  atti- 
tude; and  the  other  was  thrust  toward  Russia, 
a  huge  colossus  with  Calmuck  dress  and  features. 
The  most  conspicuous  thing  in  the  giant's  dress 
was  a  helmet  with  a  spike  projecting  from  the 
top,  much  too  large  for  the  head  of  the  wearer, 
and  therefore  falling  over  his  eyes  until  they 
were  almost  blinded  by  it.  The  style  of  the 
helmet  was  that  of  the  usual  head-dress  of  the 
Prussian  soldier.  The  caricature  generally  was 
not  bad,  and  the  hit  at  Prussia,  half  crushed 
and  blinded  under  the  big  helmet,  was  par- 
ticularly good.  Throughout  her  whole  history 
Prussia  is  either  at  war,  or  getting  ready  for 
war,  or  lying  exhausted  through  wounds  and  re- 
covering strength.  In  Prussia  you  found  things 
of  pugnacious  suggestion  always,  and  in  the  most 
incongruous  connections.  Study  the  schools,  and 
there  was  something  to  call  up  the  soldier. 
Study  the  church,  and  even  there  was  a  burly 
polemic  quality  which  you  can  trace  back  from 
to-day  to  the  time  when  the  Prussian  bishops 
were  fighting  knights.  Study  the  people  in  their 
quietest  moods,  in  their  homes,  among  their 
recreations,  indeed,  among  the  graves  of  those 
they  honour  as  the  greatest  heroes,  and  you 
found  the  same  overhanging  shadow  of  war. 
This  predominant  martial  quality  showed  itself 
in  ways  sometimes  brutal,  sometimes  absurd, 
sometimes  sublime. 


110  *    The  Last  Leaf 

I  visited  Prussia  at  a  time  of  entire  peace, 
for  at  my  departure  I  crossed  the  frontier  (or 
that  of  the  North  German  Confederation,  the 
whole  of  which,  for  convenience's  sake,  we  will 
call  Prussia)  on  the  very  day  when  King  Wil- 
liam was  shouldering  aside  so  roughly  at  Ems 
Benedetti  and  the  famous  French  demands.  The 
things  to  which  I  gave  attention  for  the  most 
part  were  the  things  which  belong  to  peace;  yet 
as  I  arrange  my  recollections  I  find  that  some- 
thing military  runs  through  the  whole  of  them. 
As  one's  letters  when  he  has  read  them  are  filed 
away  on  the  pointed  wire  standing  on  the  desk, 
so  as  regards  my  Prussian  experiences  every- 
thing seems  to  have  been  filed  away  on  the  spike 
of  a  helmet. 

Going  out  early  one  May  morning  to  get  my 
first  sight  of  Berlin,  I  stood  presently  in  a  broad 
avenue.  In  the  centre  ran  a  wide  promenade 
lined  with  tall,  full-foliaged  trees,  with  a  crowded 
roadway  on  each  side  bordered  by  stately  build- 
ings. Close  by  me  a  colossal  equestrian  statue 
in  bronze  towered  up  till  the  head  of  the  rider 
was  on  a  level  with  the  eaves  of  the  houses. 
The  rider  was  in  cocked  hat,  booted  and  spurred, 
the  eye  turned  sharp  to  the  left  as  if  recon- 
noitring, the  attitude  alert,  life-like,  as  if  he 
might  dismount  any  moment  if  he  chose.  In 
the  distance  down  the  long  perspective  of  trees 
was  a  lofty  gate  supported  by  columns,  with  a 
figure  of  Victory  on  the  top  in  a  chariot  drawn 


THe  Aspect  of  Berlin  in 

by  horses.  Close  at  hand  again,  under  the  porch 
of  a  square  strong  structure,  stood  two  straight 
sentinels.  An  officer  passed  in  a  carriage  on  the 
farther  side  of  the  avenue.  Instantly  the  two 
sentinels  stepped  back  in  concert  as  if  the  same 
clock-work  regulated  their  movements,  brought 
their  shining  pieces  with  perfect  precision  to 
the  "present,"  stood  for  an  instant  as  if  hewn 
from  stone,  the  spiked  helmets  above  the  blond 
faces  inclining  backward  at  the  same  angle,  then 
precisely  together  fell  into  the  old  position.  The 
street  was  "  Unter  den  Linden."  The  tall 
statue  was  the  memorial  of  Frederick  the  Great. 
The  gate  down  the  long  vista  was  the  Branden- 
burger  Thor,  surmounted  by  the  charioted  Vic- 
tory which  Napoleon  carried  to  Paris  after  Jena 
and  which  came  back  after  Waterloo.  The  solid 
building  was  the  palace  of  iron-grey  old  King 
William ;  and  when  the  clock-work  sentinels  went 
through  their  salute,  I  got  my  first  sight  of  that 
famous  Prussian  discipline,  against  which  be- 
fore the  summer  was  through  supple  France  was 
to  crush  its  teeth  all  to  fragments,  like  a  viper 
that  has  incautiously  bitten  at  a  file. 

There  never  was  a  place  with  aspect  more 
military  than  Berlin  even  in  peaceful  times.  In 
many  quarters  towered  great  barracks  for  the 
troops.  The  public  memorials  were  almost  ex- 
clusively in  honour  of  great  soldiers.  There 
were  tall  columns,  too,  to  commemorate  victories 
or    the    crushing    out   of    revolutionary    spirit; 


112  THe  Last  Leaf 

rarely,  indeed,  in  comparison,  a  statue  to  a  man 
of  scientific  or  literary  or  artistic  eminence. 
Frederick  sits  among  the  tree-tops  of  Unter  den 
Linden,  and  about  his  pedestal  are  life-size 
figures  of  the  men  of  his  age  whom  Prussia 
holds  most  worthy  of  honour.  At  the  four 
corners  ride  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  and  cunning 
Prince  Heinrich,  old  Ziethen  and  fiery  Seydlitz. 
Between  are  a  score  or  more  of  soldiers  of  lesser 
note,  only  soldiers,  spurred  and  sabre-girt, — ex- 
cept at  the  very  back ;  and  there,  just  where  the 
tail  of  Frederick's  horse  droops  over,  stand — 
whom  think  you? — no  others  than  Lessing,  critic 
and  poet,  most  gifted  and  famous;  and  Kant, 
peer  of  Plato  and  Bacon,  one  of  the  most  gifted 
brains  of  all  time.  Just  standing  room  for  them 
among  the  hoofs  and  uniforms  at  the  tail  of 
Frederick's  horse !  Every  third  man  one  met  in 
Berlin  was  a  soldier  off  duty.  Batteries  of  sfeel 
guns  rolled  by  at  any  time,  obedient  to  their 
bugles.  Squadrons  of  Uhlans  in  uniforms  of 
green  and  red,  the  pennons  fluttering  from  the 
ends  of  their  lances,  rode  up  to  salute  the  king. 
Each  day  at  noon,  through  the  roar  of  the  streets, 
swelled  the  finest  martial  music;  first  a  grand 
sound  of  trumpets,  then  a  deafening  roll  from 
a  score  of  brazen  drums.  A  heavy  detachment 
of  infantry  wheeled  out  from  some  barracks, 
ranks  of  strong  brown-haired  young  men  stretch- 
ing from  sidewalk  to  sidewalk,  neat  in  every 
thread  and  accoutrement,  with  the  German  gift 


THe  Main  Guard  113 

for  music  all,  as  the  stride  told  with  which  they 
beat  out  upon  the  pavement  the  rhythm  of  the 
march,  dropping  sections  at  intervals  to  do  the 
unbroken  guard  duty  at  the  various  posts.  Fre- 
quently whole  army  corps  gathered  to  manoeuvre 
at  the  vast  parade-ground  by  the  Kreuzberg  in 
the  outskirts.  On  Unter  den  Linden  is  a  strong 
square  building,  erected,  after  the  model  of  a 
Roman  fortress,  to  be  the  quarters  of  the  main 
guard.  The  officers  on  duty  at  Berlin  came  here 
daily  at  noon  to  hear  military  music  and  for  a 
half-hour's  talk.  They  came  always  in  full  uni- 
form, a  collection  of  the  most  brilliant  colours, 
hussars  in  red,  blue,  green,  and  black,  the  king's 
body-guard  in  white  with  braid  of  yellow  and 
silver,  in  helmets  that  flashed  as  if  made  from 
burnished  gold,  crested  with  an  eagle  with  out- 
spread wings.  The  men  themselves  were  the 
handsomest  one  can  see;  figures  of  the  finest 
symmetry  and  stature,  trained  by  every  athletic 
exercise,  and  the  faces  often  so  young  and 
beautiful!  Counts  and  barons  were  there  from 
Pomerania  and  old  Brandenburg,  where  the 
Prussian  spirit  is  most  intense,  and  no  nobility 
is  nobler  or  prouder.  They  were  blue-eyed  and 
fair-haired  descendants  perhaps  of  the  chieftains 
that  helped  Herman  overcome  Varus,  and  whose 
names  may  be  found  five  hundred  years  back 
among  the  Deutsch  Bitters  that  conquered  North- 
ern Europe  from  heathendom,  and  thence  all  the 
way  down  to  now,  occurring  in  martial  and 
l 


114  THe  Last  Leaf 

princely  connection.     It  was  the  acme  of  martial 
splendour. 

"But  how  do  you  bear  it  all?"  you  say  to 
your  Prussian  friend,  with  whom  you  stand  look- 
ing on  at  the  base  of  Billow's  statue.  "  Is  not 
this  enormous  preparation  for  bloodshed  some- 
thing dreadful?  Then  the  tax  on  the  country 
to  support  it  all,  the  withdrawing  of  such  a  mul- 
titude from  the  employments  of  peace."  Your 
friend,  who  had  been  a  soldier  himself,  would 
answer :  "  We  bear  it  because  we  must.  It  is 
the  price  of  our  existence,  and  we  have  got  used 
to  it;  and,  after  all,  with  the  hardship  come 
great  benefits.  Every  able-bodied  young  Prus- 
sian must  serve  as  a  soldier,  be  he  noble  or  low- 
born, rich  or  poor.  If  he  cannot  read  or  write, 
he  must  learn.  He  must  be  punctual,  neat,  tem- 
perate, and  so  gets  valuable  habits.  His  body 
is  trained  to  be  strong  and  supple.  Shoemaker 
and  banker's  son,  count,  tailor,  and  farmer 
march  together,  and  community  of  feeling  comes 
about.  The  great  traditions  of  Prussian  history 
are  the  atmosphere  they  breathe,  and  they  be- 
come patriotic.  The  soldier  must  put  off  marry- 
ing, perhaps  half  forget  his  trade,  and  come  into 
life  poor ;  for  who  can  save  on  nine  cents  a  day, 
with  board  and  clothes?  But  it  is  a  wonder  if 
he  is  not  a  healthy,  well-trained,  patriotic  man." 
So  talked  your  Prussian;  and  however  much  of 
a  peace-man  you  might  be,  you  could  not  help  own- 
ing there  was  some  truth  in  it.    If  you  bought  a 


THe  Arsenal  115 

suit  of  clothes,  the  tailor  jumped  up  from  his 
cross-legged  position,  prompt  and  full-chested, 
with  tan  on  his  face  he  got  in  campaigning;  and 
it  is  hard  to  say  he  had  lost  more  than  he  gained 
in  his  army  training.  If  you  went  into  a  school, 
the  teacher,  with  a  close-clipped  beard  and  vigor- 
ous gait,  who  had  a  scar  on  his  face  from  Konig- 
gratz,  seemed  none  the  worse  for  it,  though  he 
might  have  read  a  few  books  the  less  and  lost 
his  student  pallor.  At  any  rate,  bad  or  good, 
so  it  was;  and  so,  said  the  Prussian,  it  must 
be.  Eternal  vigilance  and  preparation!  I  went 
in  one  day  to  the  arsenal.  The  flags  which  Prus- 
sian armies  had  taken  from  almost  every  nation 
in  Europe  were  ranged  against  the  walls  by  the 
hundred ;  shot-shattered  rags  of  silk,  white  stand- 
ards of  Austria  embroidered  with  gold,  Bavaria's 
blue  checker,  above  all  the  great  Napoleonic  sym- 
bol, the  N  surrounded  by  its  wreath.  This  was 
the  memorable  tapestry  that  hung  the  walls, 
and  opposite  glittered  the  waiting  barrels  and 
bayonets  till  one  could  almost  believe  them  con- 
scious, and  burning  to  do  as  much  as  the  flint- 
locks that  won  the  standards.  There  was  a 
needle-gun  there  or  somewhere  for  every  able- 
bodied  man,  and  somewhere  else  uniform  and 
equipments.  When  I  landed  in  February  on  the 
bank  of  the  Weser,  the  most  prominent  object 
was  the  redoubt  with  the  North  German  flag. 
When  in  midsummer  I  crossed  the  Bavarian 
frontier  among  a  softer  people,  the  last  marked 


Ii6  The  Last  L>eaf 

object  was  the  old  stronghold  of  Coburg,  bat- 
tered by  siege  after  siege  for  a  thousand  years. 
It  was  the  spiked  helmet  at  the  entrance  and 
again  at  the  exit ;  and  from  entrance  to  exit,  few 
places  or  times  were  free  from  some  martial 
suggestion.  It  was  a  nation  that  had  come  to 
power  mainly  through  war,  and  been  schooled 
into  the  belief  that  its  mailed  fists  alone  could 
guarantee  its  life. 

I  visited  a  primary  school.  The  little  boys 
of  six  came  with  knapsacks  strapped  to  their 
backs  for  their  books  and  dinners,  instead  of 
satchels.  At  the  tap  of  a  bell  they  formed  them- 
selves into  column  and  marched  like  little  vete- 
rans to  the  schoolroom  door.  I  visited  a  school 
for  boys  of  thirteen  or  fourteen.  Casting  my 
eyes  into  the  yard,  I  saw  the  spiked  helmet  in 
the  shape  of  the  half -military  manoeuvres  of  a 
class  wThich  the  teacher  of  gymnastics  was  train- 
ing for  the  severer  drill  of  five  or  six  years  later. 
I  visited  the  "  prima,"  or  upper  class  of  a  gym- 
nasium, and  here  was  the  spiked  helmet  ia  a 
connection  that  seemed  at  first  rather  irreverent. 
After  all,  however,  it  was  only  thoroughly  Prus- 
sian, and  deserved  to  be  looked  upon  as  a 
comical  incongruity  rather  than  gravely  blamed. 
A  row  of  cheap  pictures  hung  side  by  side  upon 
the  wall.  First  Luther,  the  rougher  characteris- 
tics of  the  well-known  portrait  somewhat  ex- 
aggerated. The  shoulders  were  even  larger  than 
common.     The  bony  buttresses  of  the  forehead 


Militarism  in  the  Schools  117 

over  the  eyes,  too,  as  they  rose  above  the  strong 
lower  face,  were  emphasised,  looking  truly  as 
though,  if  tongue  and  pen  failed  to  make  a  way, 
the  shoulders  could  push  one,  and,  if  worse  came 
to  worst,  the  head  would  butt  one.      Next  to 
Luther  was  a  head  of  Christ;  then  in  the  same 
line,  with  nothing  in  the  position  or  quality  of 
the  pictures  to  indicate  that  the  subjects  were 
any  less  esteemed,  a  row  of  royal  personages, 
whose  military  trappings  were  made  particularly 
plain.     It  was  all  characteristic  enough.      The 
Reformer's  figure  stood  for  the  stalwart  Pro- 
testantism of  the  Prussian  character,  still  living 
and  militant  in  a  way  hard  for  us  to  imagine; 
the  portraits  of  the  royal  soldiers  stood  for  its 
combative  loyalty,  ready  to  meet  anything  for 
king  and  fatherland ;  and  the  head  of  Christ  for 
its  zealous  faith,  which,  however  it  may  have 
cooled  away  among  some  classes  of  the  people, 
was  still  intense  in  the  nation  at  large.     I  visited 
the  best  school  for  girls  in  Berlin,  and  it  was 
singular  to  find  the  spiked  helmet,  among  those 
retiring  maidens  even,  and  this  time  not  hung 
upon  the  wall  nor  outside  in  the  yard.      The 
teacher  of  the  most  interesting  class  I  visited 
— a  class  in  German  literature — was  a  man  of 
forty-five,  of  straight,  soldierly  bearing,  a  grey, 
martial  moustache,  and  energetic  eye.     He  told 
me,  as  we  walked  together  in  the  hall,  waiting 
for  the  exercise  to  commence,  that  he  had  been 
a  soldier,  and  it  so  happened  that  among  the 


n8  The  Last  Leaf 

ballads  in  the  lesson  for  that  day  was  one  in 
honour  of  the  Prussian  troops  at  Rossbach. 
Over  this  the  old  soldier  broke  out  into  an  ani- 
mated lecture,  which  grew  more  and  more  earnest 
as  he  went  forward;  he  showed  how  the  idea  of 
faithfulness  to  duty  had  become  obscured,  but 
was  enforced  again  by  the  philosopher  Kant  in 
his  teaching,  and  then  brought  into  practice 
by  the  great  Frederick.  The  veteran  plainly 
thought  there  was  no  duty  higher  than  that 
owed  to  the  schwarzer  Adler,  the  black  eagle  of 
Prussia.  Then  came  an  account  of  the  French 
horse  before  Rossbach ;  how  they  rode  out  from 
Weimar,  the  troopers,  before  they  went,  ripping 
open  the  beds  on  which  they  had  slept  and  scat- 
tering the  feathers  to  the  wind  to  plague  the 
housewives, — a  piece  of  ruthlessness  that  came 
home  thoroughly  to  the  young  housekeepers;  then 
how  der  alte  Fritz,  lying  in  wait  behind  Janus 
Hill,  with  General  Seydlitz  and  Field-marshal 
Keith,  suddenly  rushed  out  and  put  them  all 
to  rout.  The  soldier  was  in  a  fever  of  patriot- 
ism and  rage  against  the  French  before  his  de- 
scription was  finished,  and  the  faces  of  the  girls 
kindled  in  response.  "  They  will  some  time,"  I 
thought,  "  be  lovers,  wives,  mothers  of  Prussian 
soldiers  themselves,  and  this  training  will  keep 
alive  in  the  home  the  national  fire." 

Admirable  schools  they  all  were,  the  presence 
of  the  spiked  helmet  notwithstanding,  and  crown- 
ing them  in  the  great  Prussian  educational  sys- 


THe  Universities  119 

tern  came  the  famous  universities.  That  at  Ber- 
lin counted  its  students  by  thousands,  its  pro- 
fessors by  hundreds.  There  was  no  branch  of 
human  knowledge  without  its  teacher.  One 
could  study  Egyptian  hieroglyphics  or  the  As- 
syrian arrow-head  inscriptions.  A  new  pimple 
could  hardly  break  out  on  the  blotched  face  of 
the  moon,  without  a  lecture  from  a  professor 
next  day  to  explain  the  theory  of  its  develop- 
ment. The  poor  earthquakes  were  hardly  left 
to  shake  in  peace  an  out-of-the-way  strip  of 
South  American  coast  or  Calabrian  plain,  but 
a  German  professor  violated  their  privacy,  un- 
dertook to  see  whence  they  came  and  whither 
they  went,  and  even  tried  to  predict  when  they 
would  go  to  shaking  again.  The  vast  building 
of  the  University  stood  on  Unter  den  Linden, 
opposite  the  palace  of  the  king.  Large  as  it 
was,  its  halls  were  crowded  at  the  end  of  every 
hour  by  the  thousand  or  two  of  young  men,  who 
presently  disappeared  within  the  lecture-rooms. 
Here  in  past  years  had  been  Hegel  and  Fichte, 
the  brothers  Grimm,  the  brothers  Humboldt, 
Niebuhr,  and  Carl  Ritter.  Here  in  my  time, 
were  Lepsius  and  Curtius,  Virchow  and  Hoff- 
man, Ranke  and  Mommsen, — the  world's  first 
scholars  in  the  past  and  present.  The  student 
selected  his  lecturers,  then  went  day  by  day 
through  the  semester  to  the  plain  lecture-rooms, 
taking  notes  diligently  at  benches  which  had 
been  whittled  well  by  his  predecessors,  and  where 


120  The  Last  Leaf 

he  too  most  likely  carved  his  own  autograph  and 
perhaps  the  name  of  the  dear  girl  he  adored, 
— for  Yankee  boys  have  no  monopoly  of  the 
jack-knife. 

Where  could  one  find  the  spiked  helmet  in  the 
midst  of  the  scholastic  quiet  and  diligence  of  a 
German  university?  It  was  visible  enough  in 
more  ways  than  one.  Here  was  one  manifesta- 
tion. Run  down  the  long  list  of  professors  and 
teachers  in  the  Anzeiger,  and  you  would  find 
somewhere  in  the  list  the  Fechtmeister,  instructor 
in  fighting,  master  of  the  sword  exercise,  and  he 
was  pretty  sure  to  be  one  of  the  busiest  men 
in  the  company.  To  most  German  students,  a 
sword,  or  8chlager,  was  as  necessary  as  pipe  or 
beer-mug;  not  a  slender  fencing-foil,  with  a  but- 
ton on  the  point,  and  slight  enough  to  snap  with 
a  vigorous  thrust,  but  a  stout  blade  of  tempered 
steel,  ground  sharp.  With  these  weapons  the 
students  perpetrated  savageries,  almost  unre- 
buked,  which  struck  an  American  with  horror. 
Duels  were  of  frequent  occurrence,  taking  place 
sometimes  at  places  and  on  days  regularly  set 
apart  for  the  really  bloody  work.  The  fighters 
were  partially  protected  by  a  sort  of  armour,  and 
the  wounds  inflicted  were  generally  more  ghastly 
than  dangerous;  though  a  son  of  Bismarck  was 
said  to  have  been  nearly  killed  at  Bonn  a  few 
years  before,  and  there  was  sometimes  serious 
maiming.  Perhaps  one  may  say  it  was  nothing 
but  very  rough  play,  but  it  was  the  play  of  young 


THe  Rx>yal  Museum  121 

savages,  whose  sport  was  nothing  to  them  with- 
out a  dash  of  cruel  rage.  The  practice  dates 
from  the  time  when  the  Germans  wore  wolf-skins, 
and  were  barbarians  roaring  in  their  woods. 
Perhaps  the  university  authorities  found  it  too 
inveterate  a  thing  to  be  done  away  with;  per- 
haps, too,  they  felt,  thinking  as  it  were  under 
their  spiked  helmets,  that  after  all  it  had  a 
value,  making  the  young  men  cool  in  danger 
and  accustoming  them  to  weapons.  We,  after 
all,  cannot  say  too  much.  Often  our  young 
American  students  in  Germany  take  to  the 
Schlager  as  gracefully  and  naturally  as  game- 
cocks to  spurs.  The  most  noted  duellist  at  one 
of  the  universities  that  winter  was  a  burly  young 
Westerner,  who  had  things  at  first  all  his  own 
way.  A  still  burlier  Prussian  from  Tubingen, 
however,  appeared  at  last,  and  so  carved  our 
valiant  borderer's  face,  that  thereafter  with  its 
criss-cross  scars  it  looked  like  a  well-frequented 
skating-ground.  Football,  too,  in  America  pro- 
bably kills  and  maims  more  in  a  year  than  all 
the  German  duels. 

To  crown  all,  the  schools  and  University  at 
Berlin  were  magnificently  supplemented  in  the 
great  Museum,  a  vast  collection,  where  one 
might  study  the  rise  and  progress  of  civilisation 
in  every  race  of  past  ages  that  lias  had  a  history, 
and  the  present  condition  of  perhaps  every  peo- 
ple, civilised  or  wild,  under  the  sun.  In  one 
great  hall  you  were  among  the  satin  garments 


122  THe  Last  Leaf 

and  lacquered  furniture  of  China;  in  another 
there  was  the  seal-skin  work  of  the  Esquimaux 
stitched  with  sinew.  Now  you  sat  in  a  Tartar 
tent,  now  among  the  war-clubs,  the  conch-shell 
trumpets,  the  drums  covered  with  human  skin 
of  the  Polynesians.  Here  it  was  the  feathery 
finery  of  the  Caribs,  here  the  idols  and  trinkets 
of  the  negroes  of  Soudan.  There  too,  in  still 
other  halls,  was  the  history  of  our  own  race; 
the  maces  the  Teutons  and  Norsemen  fought 
with,  the  tores  of  twisted  gold  they  wore  about 
their  necks,  the  sacrificial  knives  that  slew  the 
victims  on  the  altars  of  Odin ;  so,  too,  what  our 
fathers  have  carved  and  spun,  moulded,  cast,  and 
portrayed,  until  we  took  up  the  task  of  life.  In 
another  place  you  found  the  great  collection 
made  in  Egypt  by  Lepsius.  The  visitor  stood 
within  the  fac-simile  of  a  temple  on  the  banks 
of  the  Nile.  On  the  walls  and  lotus-shaped 
columns  were  processions  of  dark  figures  at  the 
loom,  at  the  work  of  irrigation,  marching  as 
soldiers,  or  mourners  at  funerals, — exact  copies 
of  the  original  delineations.  There  were  sphinx 
and  obelisk,  coffins  of  kings,  mummies  of  priest 
and  chieftain,  the  fabrics  they  wore,  the  gems 
they  cut,  the  scrolls  they  engrossed,  the  tomb  in 
which  they  were  buried.  Stepping  into  another 
section,  you  were  in  Assyria,  with  the  alabaster 
lions  and  plumed  genii  of  the  men  of  Nineveh 
and  Babylon.  The  walls  again  were  brilliant, 
now  with  the  splendour  of  the  palaces  of  Nebu- 


TKe  IVoyal  Museum  123 

chadnezzar;  the  captives  building  temples,  the 
chivalry  sacking  cities,  the  princes  on  their 
thrones.  Here  too  was  Etruria  revealed  in  her 
sculpture  and  painted  vases;  and  here  too  the 
whole  story  of  Greece.  Passing  through  these 
wonderful  halls,  you  reviewed  a  thousand  years 
and  more,  almost  from  the  epoch  of  Cadmus, 
through  the  vicissitudes  of  empire  and  servitude, 
until  Constantinople  was  sacked  by  the  Turks. 
The  rude  Pelasgic  altar,  the  sculptured  god  of 
Praxiteles,  then  down  through  the  ages  of  decay 
to  the  ugly  painting  of  the  Byzantine  monk  in 
the  Dark  Ages.  So  too  the  whole  history  of 
Rome ;  the  long  heave  of  the  wave  from  Romulus 
until  it  becomes  crested  with  the  might  and 
beauty  of  the  Augustan  age;  the  sad  subsidence 
from  that  summit  to  Goth  and  Hun.  There  was 
architecture  which  the  eyes  of  the  Tarquins  saw, 
there  were  statues  of  the  great  consuls  of  the 
Republic,  the  luxury  of  the  later  Empire.  You 
saw  it  not  only  in  models,  but  sometimes  in 
actual  relics.  One's  blood  thrilled  when  he  stood 
before  a  statue  of  Julius  Caesar,  whose  sculptor, 
it  is  reasonable  to  believe,  wrought  from  the  life. 
It  was  broken  and  discoloured,  as  it  came  from 
the  Italian  ruin  where  it  had  lain  since  the 
barbarian  raids.  But  the  grace  had  not  left  the 
toga  folded  across  the  breast,  nor  was  the  fine 
Roman  majesty  gone  from  the  head  and  face, — 
a  head  small,  but  high,  with  a  full  and  ample 
brow,  a  nose  with  the  true  eagle  curve,  and  thin, 


124  The  Last  Leaf 

firm  lips  formed  to  command ;  a  statue  most  sub- 
duing in  its  simple  dignity  and  pathetic  in  its 
partial  ruin.  And  all  this  was  free  to  the  world 
as  the  air  of  heaven  almost.  No  fee  for  ad- 
mission; the  only  requisitions,  not  to  handle, 
orderly  behaviour,  and  decent  neatness  in  attire. 
Here  I  saw  too,  when  I  ascended  the  steps 
between  the  great  bronze  groups  of  statuary  as 
I  entered,  and  again  the  last  thing  as  I  left,  the 
spiked  helmet  on  the  head  of  the  stiff  sentinel 
always  posted  at  the  door. 

The  German  home  was  affectionate  and  genial. 
The  American,  properly  introduced,  was  sure  of 
a  generous  welcome,  for  it  was  hard  to  find  a 
German  who  had  not  many  relatives  beyond  the 
Atlantic.  There  were  courteous  observances 
which  at  first  put  one  a  little  aback.  Sneezing, 
for  instance,  was  not  a  thing  that  could  be  done 
in  a  corner.  If  the  family  were  a  bit  old- 
fashioned,  you  would  be  startled  and  abashed  by 
hearing  the  "  prosits  "  and  "  Gesundheits  "  from 
the  company,  wishes  that  it  might  be  for  your 
advantage  and  health  sonorously  given,  with 
much  friendly  nodding  in  your  direction.  This 
is  a  curious  survival  of  an  old  superstition  that 
sneezing  perhaps  opened  a  passage  through  which 
an  evil  spirit  might  enter  the  body.  As  you  rose 
from  the  table  it  was  the  old-fashioned  way,  too, 
to  go  through  with  a  general  hand-shaking,  and 
a  wish  to  every  one  that  the  supper  might  set 
well.     The  Germans  are  long-lived,  and  almost 


Militarism  in  tHe  Home  125 

every  domestic  hearthstone  supports  the  easy- 
chairs  of  grandparents.  Grandfather  was  often 
fresh  and  cheerful,  the  oracle  and  comforter  of 
the  children,  treated  with  deference  by  those 
grown  up,  and  presented  to  the  guest  as  the 
central  figure  of  the  home.  As  the  younger  ones 
dropped  off  to  bed  and  things  grew  quieter, 
grandfather's  chair  was  apt  to  be  the  centre 
toward  which  all  tended,  and,  of  course,  the  old 
man  talked  about  his  youth.  Here  are  the 
reminiscences  I  heard  once  at  the  end  of  a  merry 
evening,  and  at  other  times  I  heard  something 
not  unlike :  "  Children  and  grandchildren  and 
guest  from  over  the  sea,  when  I  was  a  boy,  Prus- 
sia was  struggling  with  the  first  Napoleon ;  and 
when  I  was  eighteen  I  marched  myself  under 
Blticher  beyond  the  Rhine.  Sometimes  we  went 
on  the  run,  sometimes  we  got  lifts  in  relays  of 
waggons,  and  so  I  have  known  the  infantry  even 
to  make  now  and  then  fifty  miles  a  day.  Mat- 
ters were  pressing,  you  see  (sehen  Sie  ' 'trial).  At 
last  we  crossed  at  Coblentz,  and  got  from  there 
into  Belgium  the  first  days  of  June.  We  met 
the  French  at  Ligny—  a  close,  bitter  fight, — and 
half  my  battalion  were  left  behind  there  where 
they  had  stood.  We  were  a  few  paces  off,  posted 
in  a  graveyard,  when  the  French  cavalry  rode 
over  old  Marshal  Vorwarts,  lying  under  his 
horse.  I  saw  the  rush  of  the  French,  then  the 
countercharge  of  the  Prussian  troopers  when 
they  missed  the  General  and  drove  the  enemy 


126  THe  Last  Leaf 

back  till  they  found  him  again;  though  what  it 
all  meant  we  never  knew  till  it  was  over.  Then, 
after  mighty  little  rest,  we  marched  fast  and  far, 
with  cannon-thunder  in  our  ears  in  a  constant 
mutter,  always  growing  louder,  until  in  the 
afternoon  we  came  at  a  quickstep  through  a 
piece  of  woods  out  upon  the  plain  by  Waterloo, 
where  they  had  been  fighting  all  day.  Our  feet 
sucked  in  the  damp  ground,  the  wet  grain 
brushed  our  knees,  as  our  compact  column  spread 
out  into  more  open  order  and  went  into  fire. 
What  a  smoke  there  was  about  La  Haye  Sainte 
and  Hougomont,  with  now  lines  of  red  infantry, 
or  a  column  in  dark  blue,  or  a  mass  of  flashing 
cuirassiers  hidden  for  a  moment,  then  reappear- 
ing! It  was  take  and  give,  hot  and  heavy,  for 
an  hour  or  so  about  Planchenoit.  A  ball  grazed 
my  elbow  and  another  went  through  my  cap; 
but  at  sunset  the  French  were  broken,  and  we 
swept  after  the  rout  as  well  as  we  could  through 
the  litter,  along  the  southward  roads.  We  were 
at  a  halt  for  a  minute,  I  remember,  when  a  rider 
in  a  chapeau  with  a  plume,  and  a  hooked  nose 
underneath,  trotted  up,  wrapped  in  a  military 
cloak,  and  somebody  said  it  was  Wellington." 
Grandfather  was  sure  to  be  at  a  white  heat  be- 
fore he  had  finished,  and  so,  too,  his  audience. 
The  athletic  student  grandson,  with  a  deep  scar 
across  his  cheek  from  a  Schlager  cut,  rose  and 
paced  the  room.  The  Frdulein,  his  sister,  to 
whom  the  retired  grenadier  has  told  the  story 


THe  Honoured  Graves  127 

of  the  feather-beds  at  Weimar,  showed  in  her 
eyes  she  remembered  it  all.  "  Yes,  friend  Ameri- 
can !  "  breaks  in  the  father  of  the  family,  "  and 
it  all  must  be  done  over  again.  Sooner  or  later 
it  must  come,  a  great  struggle  with  France ;  the 
Latin  race  or  the  Teutonic,  which  shall  be  su- 
preme in  Europe?  We  are  ready  now;  arsenals 
filled,  horses  waiting,  equipments  for  everybody. 
Son  Fritz  there  has  his  uniform  ready,  and  some- 
where there  is  one  for  me.  Donnenvetter!  If 
they  get  into  Prussia,  they  '11  find  a  tough  old 
Landsturm!  Only  let  Vater  Wilhelm  turn  his 
hand,  and  to-morrow  close  upon  a  million  trained 
and  well-armed  troops  could  be  stepping  to  the 
drum."  It  was  an  evening  at  the  end  of  June. 
Napoleon  was  having  the  finishing  touches  put 
to  the  new  Opera  House  at  Paris,  thinking,  so 
far  as  the  world  could  tell,  of  nothing  more  im- 
portant than  how  many  imperial  eagles  it  would 
do  to  put  along  the  cornice.  King  William  was 
packing  for  Ems,  designing  to  be  back  at  the 
peaceful  unveiling  of  his  father's  statue  the  first 
week  in  August.  Bismarck  was  at  his  Pome- 
ranian estate,  in  poor  health,  it  was  said,  plot- 
ting nothing  but  to  circumvent  his  bodily  trouble. 
In  less  than  a  month  full-armed  Prussia  was  on 
the  march.  I  could  understand  the  readiness, 
when  I  thought  of  the  spiked  helmet  I  had  seen 
in  the  Prussian  home  that  quiet  summer  night. 

The  German  FriedJiof,  or  burying-ground,  had 
never  the  extent  or  magnificence  of  some  Ameri- 


128  The  Last  Leaf 

can  cemeteries.  Even  near  the  cities  it  was 
small  and  quiet,  showing,  however,  in  the  well- 
kept  mounds  and  stones  there  was  no  want  of 
care.  Every  old  church,  too,  was  floored  with 
the  memorial  tablets  of  those  buried  beneath,  and 
bare  upon  walls  and  columns  monuments  in  the 
taste  of  the  various  ages  that  have  come  and 
gone  since  the  church  was  built.  Graves  of 
famous  men,  here  as  everywhere,  were  places  of 
pilgrimage,  and  here  as  everywhere  to  see  which 
are  the  most  honoured  tombs,  was  no  bad  way 
of  judging  the  character  of  the  people.  Among 
the  scholars  of  Germany  there  have  been  no 
greater  names  than  those  of  Jakob  and  Wilhelm 
Grimm,  brothers  not  far  apart  in  the  cradle, 
not  far  apart  in  death,  who  lived  and  worked 
together  their  full  threescore  years  and  ten. 
They  were  two  wonderful  old  men,  with  faces 
— as  I  saw  them  together  in  a  photograph  shown 
me  by  Hermann  Grimm,  the  well-known  son  of 
Wilhelm — full  of  intellectual  strength,  and  yet 
with  the  sweetness  and  innocence  of  children. 
They  lie  now  side  by  side  in  the  Matthai  Kirch- 
hof  at  Berlin,  in  graves  precisely  similar,  with  a 
lovely  rose-bush  scattering  petals  impartially  on 
the  turf  above  both,  and  solid  twin  stones  at 
their  heads,  meant  to  endure  apparently  as  long 
as  their  fame.  Hither  come  a  large  and  various 
company  of  pilgrims, — children  who  love  the 
brothers  Grimm  for  their  fairy-tales,  young  stu- 
dents who  have  been  kindled  by  their  example, 


THe  Honoured  Graves  129 

and  grey  old  scholars  who  respect  their  achieve- 
ments as  the  most  marvellous  work  of  the  mar- 
vellous German  erudition.  The  little  North 
German  city,  Weimar,  is  closely  associated  with 
the  great  literary  men  of  the  last  hundred  years. 
Here  several  of  them  accomplished  their  best 
work  under  the  patronage  of  an  enlightened 
duke,  and  finally  found  their  graves.  An  at- 
mosphere of  reverend  quiet  seemed  to  hang  over 
it  as  I  walked  through  its  shaded  streets, — 
streets  where  there  is  never  bustle,  and  which 
appear  to  be  always  remembering  the  great  men 
who  have  walked  in  them.  In  the  burying- 
ground  in  the  outskirts  I  found  the  mausoleum 
of  the  ruling  house,  a  decorated  hall  of  marble 
with  a  crypt  underneath  in  which  are  the  coffins. 
The  members  of  the  Saxe-Weimar  family  for 
many  generations  are  here ;  the  warlike  ancestor 
with  his  armour  rusting  on  the  dusty  lid,  grand- 
duke  and  duchess,  and  the  child  that  died  before 
it  attained  the  coronet.  But  far  more  interest- 
ing than  any  of  these  are  two  large  plain  caskets 
of  oak,  lying  side  by  side  at  the  foot  of  the 
staircase  by  which  you  descend.  In  these  are 
the  bones  of  Goethe  and  Schiller.  The  heap  of 
wreaths,  some  of  them  still  fresh,  which  lay  on 
the  tops,  the  number  on  the  coffin  of  Schiller 
being  noticeably  the  larger,  showed  how  green 
their  memory  had  been  kept  in  the  heart  of  the 
nation.  I  was  only  one  of  a  great  multitude  of 
pilgrims   who   are   coming   always,    their    chief 


130  THe  Last  Leaf 

errand  being  to  see  the  graves  of  these  famous 
dead  within  the  quiet  town.  In  the  side  of  the 
Sehloss  Kirche,  in  the  city  of  Wittenberg,  is 
an  old  archway,  with  pillars  carved  as  if  twisted 
and  with  figures  of  saints  overhead,  the  sharp- 
ness of  the  cutting  being  somewhat  broken  and 
worn  away  through  time.  It  is  the  doorway 
which  rang  loud  three  hundred  years  ago  to  the 
sound  of  Luther's  hammer  as  he  nailed  up  his 
ninety-five  theses.  Within  the  church,  about 
midway  toward  the  altar  and  near  the  wall,  the 
guide  lifts  an  oaken  trap-door  and  shows  you, 
beneath,  the  slab  which  covers  Luther's  ashes. 
Just  opposite,  in  a  sepulchre  precisely  similar, 
lies  Melanchthon,  and  in  the  chancel  near  by, 
in  tombs  rather  more  stately,  the  electors  of 
Saxony  that  befriended  the  reformers.  A  spot 
worthy  indeed  to  be  a  place  of  pilgrimage!  at- 
tracting not  only  those  who  bless  the  men,  but 
those  who  curse  them.  Charles  V.  and  Alva 
stood  once  on  the  pavement  where  the  visitor 
now  stands,  and  the  Emperor  commanded  the 
stone  to  be  removed  from  the  grave  of  Luther. 
Did  the  body  turn  in  its  coffin  at  the  violation? 
It  might  well  have  been  so,  for  never  was  there 
fiercer  hate.  For  three  centuries  the  generations 
have  trooped  hitherward,  more  often  drawn  in 
reverence,  but  sometimes  through  very  hatred, 
a  multitude  too  mighty  to  be  numbered.  But 
there  is  a  grave  in  Prussia,  where,  if  I  mistake 
not,  the  pilgrims  are  more  numerous  and  the 


Sepulchre  of  FredericK  the  Great  131 

interest,  for  the  average  Prussian,  deeper  than 
scholar  or  poet  or  reformer  call  out.     The  garri- 
son church  at  Potsdam  has  a  plain  name  and 
is    a    plain    edifice,    when    one    thinks    of    the 
sepulchre  it  holds.     Hung  upon  the  walls  are 
dusty  trophies;   there  are   few   embellishments 
besides.     You  make  your  way  through  the  aisles 
among    the   pews    where   the   regiments   sit    at 
service,  marching  from  their  barracks  close  by, 
then  through  a  door  beneath  the  pulpit  enter 
a  vault  lighted  by  tapers  along  the  wall.     Two 
heavy  coffins  stand  on  the  stone  floor,— the  older 
one  that  of  Frederick  William  I.,  that  despot, 
partially  insane,  perhaps,  who  yet  accomplished 
great  things  for  Prussia;  the  other  that  of  his 
famous  son,  Frederick  the  Great,  whose  sword 
cut  the  path  by  which  Prussia  advanced  to  her 
vast  power.     On   the   copper   lid   formerly  lay 
that  sword,  until  the  great  Napoleon  when  he 
stood  there,  feeling  a  twinge  of  jealousy  perhaps 
over  the  dead  leader's  fame,  carried  it  away  with 
him.     Father  and  son  lie  quietly  enough  now 
side  by  side,  though  their  relations  in  life  were 
stormy.     About  the  great  soldier's  sleep  every 
hour  rolls  the  drumbeat  from  the  garrison  close 
by.     The  tramp  of  the  columns  as  they  come  in 
to  worship  jar  the  warrior's  ashes.     The  dusky 
standards  captured  in  the  Seven   Years'  War 
droop    about    him.      The    hundred    intervening 
years  have  blackened  them,  already  singed  in 
the  fire  of  Zorndorf,  Leuthen,  and  Torgau.     The 


132  The  Last  Leaf 

moth  makes  still  larger  the  rent  where  the  vol- 
leys passed.  The  spiked  helmet  is  even  here 
among  the  tombs ;  and  schooled  as  the  Prussians 
are  among  the  din  of  trumpets  and  smoke  of 
wars,  no  other  among  the  mighty  graves  in  their 
land  holds  dust,  in  their  thought,  so  heroic. 

Seven  hundred  years  ago  Frederick's  ancestor 
Conrad,  the  younger  son  of  a  family  of  some  rank, 
but  quite  undistinguished,  riding  down  from  the 
little  stronghold  of  Hohenzollern  in  Swabia,  with 
nothing  but  a  good  head  and  arm,  won  favour 
with  the  Emperor  Barbarossa  and  became  at 
last  Burggraf  of  Nuremberg.  I  saw  the  old 
castle  in  which  this  Conrad  lived  and  his  line 
after  him  for  several  generations.  It  rises 
among  fortifications  the  plan  for  which  Albert 
Dtirer  drew,  with  narrow  windows  in  the  thick 
masonry  of  the  towers,  the  battlements  worn  by 
the  pacing  to  and  fro  of  sentinels  in  armour,  and 
an  ancient  linden  in  the  court-yard,  planted  by  an 
empress  a  thousand  years  ago  it  is  said,  with 
as  green  a  canopy  to  throw  over  the  tourist  to- 
day as  it  threw  over  those  old  Hohenzollerns. 
Conrad  transmitted  to  his  descendants  his  good 
head  and  strong  arm,  until  at  length  becoming 
masters  of  Baireuth  and  Anspach,  they  were 
Margraves  and  ranked  among  important  princes. 
Their  seat  now  was  at  Culmbach,  in  the  great 
castle  of  the  Plessenburg.  I  saw  one  May  morn- 
ing the  grey  walls  of  the  old  nest  high  on  its 
cliff  at  the  junction  of  the  red  and  white  Main, 


The  Hohenzollern  Lineage         133 

threatening  still,  for  it  is  now  a  Bavarian  prison. 
The  power  of  the  house  grew  slowly.     In  one 
age  it  got  Brandenburg,  in  another  the  great 
districts  of  Ost  and  West  Preussen ;  now  it  was 
possessions  in  Silesia,  now  again  territory  on 
the  Rhine.     Power  came  sometimes  through  im- 
perial gift,  sometimes  through  marriage,  some- 
times through  purchase  or  diplomacy  or  blows. 
From  poor  soldiers  of  fortune  to  counts,  from 
counts  to  princes,  from  princes  to  electors,  and 
at  last  kings.    Sometimes  they  are  unscrupulous, 
sometimes  feeble,   sometimes  nobly   heroic   and 
faithful;  more  often  strong  than  weak  in  brain 
and    hand.     The    Hohenzollern    tortoise    keeps 
creeping    forward    in    its    history,    surpassing 
many  a  swift  hare  that  once  despised  it  in  the 
race.     I  believe  it  is  the  oldest  princely  line  in 
Europe.     There  is  certainly  none  whose  history 
on   the    whole   is   better.     Margraf    George    of 
Anspach-Baireuth  was  perhaps  the  finest  char- 
acter among  the  Protestant  princes  of  the  Re- 
formation, without  whom  the  good  fight  could 
not  have  been  fought.     When   Charles  V.   be- 
sieged Metz  in  the  winter  (which,  with  Lorraine, 
had    just    been    torn    from    Germany    by    the 
French),   and   was   compelled   by   the   cold   to 
withdraw,  it  was  a  Hohenzollern  prince,  one  of 
the  first  soldiers  of  the  time,  who  led  the  rear- 
guard over  ground  which  another  Hohenzollern, 
Prince    Frederick    Charles,    has    again     made 
famous.     Later,    in    Frederick    the   Great,   the 


134  The  Last  Leaf 

house  furnished  one  of  the  firmest  hands  that 
ever  held  a  royal  sceptre.  His  successors  have 
been  men  of  power. 

They  are  good  types  of  their  stock,  and  Prus- 
sia is  worthy  of  the  leadership  to  which  she  is 
advancing.  In  the  cathedral  of  Speyer  stand 
the  statues  of  the  mighty  German  Kaisers,  who 
six  hundred  years  ago  wore  the  purple,  and,  after 
their  wild  battle  with  the  elements  of  disorder 
about  them,  were  buried  at  last  in  its  crypts. 
They  are  majestic  figures  for  the  most  part, 
idealised  by  the  sculptor,  and  yet  probably  not 
far  beyond  nature;  for  the  imperial  dignity  was 
not  hereditary,  but  given  to  the  man  chosen  for 
it,  and  the  choice  was  often  a  worthy  one.  They 
were  leaders  in  character  as  well  as  station,  and 
it  is  right  to  give  their  images  the  bearing  of 
men  strong  in  war  and  council.  I  felt  that  if 
the  ancient  dignity  was  to  be  revived  in  our  own 
day,  and  the  sceptre  of  Barbarossa  and  Rudolph 
of  Hapsburg  to  be  extended  again  over  a  united 
Germany,  there  had  been  few  princes  more 
worthy  to  hold  it  thau  the  modern  Hohenzollern. 

In  speaking  of  this  great  people  so  as  to  give 
the  best  idea  of  them  in  a  short  space,  I  have 
seized  on  what  seemed  to  me  in  those  days  the 
most  salient  thing,  and  described  various  phases 
of  their  life  as  pervaded  by  it.  The  fighting 
spirit  was  bred  in  their  bones.  They  were  a 
nation  of  warriors  almost  as  much  as  the  Spar- 
tans, and  stood  ready  on  the  instant  to  obey 


The  Reason  for  it  All  135 

the  tap  of  the  drum  calling  to  arms.  Such  con- 
stant suggestions  of  war  were  painful.  The 
spiked  helmet  is  never  an  amiable  head-dress; 
"  but,"  said  the  representative  Prussian,  "  there 
is  no  help  for  it.  We  have  been  a  weak  people 
wedged  in  between  powerful  unscrupulous  neigh- 
bours, and  have  had  a  life-and-death  struggle  to 
wage  almost  constantly  with  one  or  the  other 
of  th^se,  or  all  at  once.  And  in  what  way  is 
our  situation  different  now?  Is  Russia  less  am- 
bitious? How  many  swords  has  France  beaten 
into  ploughshares?  What  pruning-hooks  have 
been  made  from  the  spears  of  Austria?  Let  us 
know  on  what  conditions  we  can  live  other  than 
wearing  our  spiked  helmets,  and  we  will  em- 
brace them."  It  was  not  an  easy  matter  to  argue 
down  your  resolute  Prussian  when  he  turned  to 
you  warmly,  after  you  had  been  crying  peace  to 
him. 

As  I  pondered,  I  thought  perhaps  it  is  a  neces- 
sity, since  the  world  is  what  it  is,  that  Europe 
should  still  be  a  place  of  discord.  America, 
however,  is  practically  one,  not  a  jarring  com- 
pany of  nations  repeating  the  protracted  agony 
of  the  Old  World.  We  have  no  question  of  the 
"  balance  of  power  "  coming  up  in  every  genera- 
tion, settled  only  to  be  unsettled  amid  devasta- 
tion and  slaughter.  We  can  grow  forward 
unhindered,  with  hardly  more  than  a  feather's 
weight  of  energy  taken  for  fighting  from  the 
employments  of  peace.     America  stands  indeed 


136  THe  Last  Leaf 

a  nation  blessed  of  God;  and  there  is  nothing 
better  worth  her  while  to  pray  for  than  that  a 
happier  time  may  come  to  her  giant  brother 
over  the  sea;  that  the  strength  of  such  an  arm 
may  not  always  waste  itself  wielding  the  sword ; 
that  the  sensibilities  of  such  a  heart  may  not 
be  crushed  or  brutalised  in  carnage  that  forever 
repeats  itself;  that  the  noble  head  may  some 
time  exchange  the  spiked  helmet  for  the  olive 
chaplet  of  peace. 


CHAPTER  V 

A  STUDENT'S  EXPERIENCE  IN  THE  FRANCO-PRUSSIAN 

WAR 

WE  rememberers  lie  under  certain  suspicion. 
"  Uncle  Mose,"  said  an  inquirer,  his  in- 
tonation betraying  scepticism,  "they  say  you 
remember  General  Washington."  "  Yaas,  Boss," 
replied  Uncle  Mose,  "  I  used  to  'member  Gen'l 
Washington,  but  sence  I  jined  de  church  I  done 
forgot."  Not  having  joined  Uncle  Mose's 
church,  my  memory  has  not  experienced  the 
ecclesiastical  discouragement  that  befell  him. 
I  humbly  trust,  however,  it  needs  no  chastening, 
and  aver  that  I  do  not  go  for  my  facts  to  my 
imagination.  I  am  now  in  foreign  parts  deal- 
ing with  personages  of  especial  dignity  and 
splendour  and  must  establish  my  memory  firmly 
in  the  reader's  confidence. 

I  was  a  student  in  Germany  in  1870.  In  the 
spring  at  Berlin,  passing  by  the  not  very  con- 
spicuous royal  palace  on  Unter  den  Linden,  one 
day  I  studied  the  front  with  some  interest. 
The  two  sentinels  stood  in  the  door  saluting  with 
clock-work  precision  the  officers  who  frequently 

137 


138  The  Last  Leaf 

passed.  A  watchful  policeman  was  on  the 
corner,  but  there  was  little  other  sign  that  an 
important  personage  was  within  the  walls. 
With  some  shock  I  suddenly  caught  sight,  in  a 
window  close  at  hand,  of  a  tall,  robust  figure 
with  a  rugged  but  not  ungenial  face  surmounted 
by  grizzled  hair,  in  uniform  with  decorations 
hanging  upon  the  broad  breast,  who,  as  I 
glanced  up,  saluted  me  with  an  unlooked-for 
nod.  I  knew  at  once  it  was  the  King  of  Prussia, 
who  before  the  year  was  ended  was  to  be  crowned 
as  Kaiser  Wilhelm  der  Grosse  at  Versailles.  I 
was  thoroughly  scared,  as  I  did  not  know  that 
it  was  the  habit  of  the  King  to  stand  in  the 
window  and  good-naturedly  greet  the  passer-by. 
That  was  my  first  sight  of  a  real  king.  But 
there  is  another  figure  which  I  contemplate  with 
more  interest.  The  31st  of  May  of  1870  was  a 
day  sent  from  heaven,  brilliant  sunshine  after  a 
period  of  cloud;  the  spring  lording  it  in  the 
air,  the  trees  and  grass  in  their  freshest  lux- 
uriance. I  was  at  Potsdam  that  day;  in  the 
wide-stretching  gardens  that  surround  the  New 
Palace.  As  I  wTalked,  I  came  to  a  cord  drawn 
across  the  path,  indicating  that  visitors  were  to 
go  no  farther.  Close  by  stood  a  tall  young 
grenadier  on  duty  as  a  sentinel,  but  willing  to 
chat.  Looking  beyond  the  cord  into  the  reserved 
space  I  presently  saw  coming  up  from  a  secluded 
path,  a  low  carriage  drawn  by  a  pony  led  by 
a  groom  in  which  was  seated  a  lady  dressed  in 


THe  Crown  Prince  at  Home         139 

white.  She  was  not  of  distinguished  appear- 
ance, but  my  grenadier  told  me  that  it  was  the 
Crown  Princess  of  Prussia,  the  daughter  of  the 
Queen  of  England.  From  the  screen  of  the  bush 
I  watched  her  with  natural  interest.  The  car- 
riage paused  and  a  group  of  little  boys  and  girls 
came  running  out  from  the  thicket  attended  by 
a  governess  or  two  and  a  tutor.  The  little  girls 
had  their  hands  full  of  flowers,  which,  running 
forward,  they  threw  into  the  carriage.  The  boys, 
too,  ran  up  with  pretty  demonstrations,  and  a 
straight  little  fellow  of  ten  years  or  so  hurried 
to  the  groom  and  began  to  pat  the  pony's  nose. 
These,  I  learned,  were  the  princes  and  prin- 
cesses of  the  royal  family.  The  little  fellow 
patting  the  pony's  nose  was  the  eldest  and  des- 
tined to  emerge  into  history  as  Kaiser  Wilhelm 
the  Second. 

And  now,  from  a  door  of  the  palace,  not  far 
distant,  came  striding  a  notable  figure,  tall  and 
stalwart,  in  the  undress  uniform  of  a  Prussian 
General.  Under  his  fatigue  cap  the  blond  hair 
was  abundant;  a  wave  of  brown  beard  swept 
down  upon  his  breast.  The  face  was  full  of 
intelligence  and  authority,  but  at  that  moment 
most  kindly  as  his  blue  eyes  sought  the  group 
that  stood  in  the  foreground.  It  was  the  Crown 
Prince  of  Prussia,  destined  at  length  to  be  the 
Emperor  Friedrich.  The  carriage  passed  on, 
the  Crown  Prince  walking,  with  his  hand  on  the 
side,  while  the  Princess  held  her  parasol  over 


140  TKe  Last  Leaf 

his  head,  laughing  at  the  idea  evidently,  that  so 
sturdy  a  soldier  needed  that  kind  of  a  screen. 

The  Crown  Prince  Friedrich  was  unpopular 
in  those  days  as  too  domestic,  standing  too  much 
withdrawn  from  the  bustling  world,  but  there 
was  no  failure  when  the  stress  came.  Only  a 
few  weeks  passed  before  the  stout  soldier,  whom 
I  had  seen  throwing  lilies  and  sheltered  from 
the  sun  by  his  wife's  parasol,  was  at  the  head 
of  a  great  army  corps,  crushing  the  power  of 
France  at  Worth  and  Weissembourg ;  but  the 
report  was  that  he  had  said,  "  I  do  not  like  war, 
and  if  I  am  ever  King  I  shall  never  make  war." 

A   few  weeks  after  the  Potsdam  incident  I 
was  in  the  city  of  Vienna.     One  morning,  like 
thunder  out  of  a  clear  sky,  news  came  of  the 
outbreak  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war.     I  read 
the  paper,  but,  not  feeling  that  the  news  need 
interfere  with  my  sight-seeing,  went  to  the  Hof 
bourg,  the  old  palace,  in  the  heart  of  the  city 
of  the  Imperial  family  of  Austria.     The  build 
ing  is  extensive;  the  streets  of  the  city  at  that 
time  running  under  it  here  and  there  in  tunnels 
I  visited  the  Schats  Kammer,  the  treasure-room 
and  saw  men  go  almost  demented  at  the  spectacle 
of  the  gold  and  jewels  heaped  up  in  the  cases 
The  sight  of  the  splendour,  the  heaped-up  jewels 
the  batons,  the  faded,  and  sometimes  bloody,  gar 
ments,  the  trinkets  and  decorations,  associated 
with  towering  personalities  of  the  past,  attuned 
my  spirit  for  some  adventure  above  the  com- 


Emperor  Francis  JosepK  141 

monplace.  As  I  came  down  into  the  street,  nar- 
row and  overhung  by  the  confining  arch,  a  soldier 
passed  me  on  the  run  into  an  open  space  just 
beyond,  where  instantly  a  battalion  hurried  out 
to  stand  at  present.  Then  in  the  distance  I 
heard  galloping  of  horses  and  an  open  carriage 
rapidly  approached,  in  which  were  seated  four 
figures,  protected  from  the  light  rain  by  grey 
overcoats,  wearing  the  chapeaux  which  have 
come  down  from  Napoleonic  times.  The  car- 
riage passed  so  near  that  I  was  obliged  to  press 
back  against  the  wall  to  save  my  feet  from  the 
wheels,  and  a  figure  on  the  back  seat,  who,  for 
the  moment,  was  within  arm's  reach,  I  recognised 
as  Francis  Joseph. 

He  was  then  a  man  in  his  best  years,  a  strong, 
sensible  if  not  impressive  face,  and  a  well-knit 
frame.  He  had  driven  in  from  Schonbrunn  to 
attend  a  council  meeting,  and  the  day  for  him 
was  no  doubt  a  most  critical  one.  War  had 
come.  It  was  only  four  years  after  Koniggratz. 
His  old  enemy,  Prussia,  was  about  to  hurl  her- 
self, with  who  could  tell  what  allies,  against 
France.  What  stand  should  Austria  take?  If 
the  Kaiser  was  agitated,  his  face  did  not  show 
it;  it  was  significant  of  quiet,  cool  poise.  Ex- 
citement was  repressed,  while  good  sense  weighed 
and  determined.  Few  sovereigns  have  been 
obliged  to  face  so  often  situations  of  the  utmost 
difficulty.  I  can  believe  that  with  similar  im- 
perturbability Francis  Joseph  has  confronted  the 


142  TKe  Last  Leaf 

series  of  perplexities  which  make  up  the  tangled 
story  of  his  long  career,  and  I  count  it  good 
fortune  that  I  witnessed,  in  a  moment  of  su- 
preme embarrassment,  the  balance  and  resolu- 
tion with  which  the  good  ruler  went  to  his  task. 
Austria,  as  the  world  knows,  decided  that  day 
to  be  neutral  in  the  Franco-Prussian  quarrel. 

The  disorder  in  the  land  made  me  feel  that 
I  must  get  nearer  to  my  base,  so  I  hurriedly 
left  Vienna  for  Munich,  which  I  found  seething 
with  agitation,  for,  like  Austria,  Bavaria  had 
only  a  few  years  before  been  Prussia's  enemy, 
and  so  far  as  the  populace  was  concerned  all 
was  in  doubt  as  to  what  course  would  now  be 
taken.  The  rumour  was  that  McMahon  had 
crossed  the  Rhine  at  Strassburg  with  150,000 
men,  and  was  marching  to  interpose  between 
Northern  and  Southern  Germany. 

At  the  Ober-Pollinger  I  heard  in  the  inn,  amid 
the  stormy  discussion  of  the  crisis,  something 
quite  out  of  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  hour. 
The  first  performance  was  to  be  given  in  the 
Royal  Opera  House  of  a  work  of  Richard 
Wagner,  the  Rheingold.  Wagner  in  those  days 
had  not  attained  his  great  fame,  and,  to  a  man 
like  me,  who  had  no  especial  interest  in  music, 
was  a  name  almost  unknown,  but  I  went  with 
the  crowd,  thinking  to  help  out  a  dreary  evening 
rather  than  to  enjoy  a  masterpiece.  The  house 
was  crowded.  In  the  centre  before  the  stage  an 
ample   space   was   occupied   by   the   royal   box, 


Trie  King  of  Bavaria  143 

richly  carved  and  draped.  Presently  the  King 
entered,  a  slender,  graceful  figure  in  a  dress  suit, 
his  dark  rather  melancholy  face  looking  hand- 
some in  the  gorgeous  setting  of  the  theatre. 
The  crowded  audience  rose  to  their  feet  in  a 
tumult  of  enthusiasm.  The  air  resounded  with 
"  Hoch !  Hoch !  "  the  German  cheer,  and  handker- 
chiefs waved  like  a  snow-storm.  The  King 
bowed  right  and  left  in  acknowledgment  of  the 
plaudits,  and  the  performance  of  the  evening  was 
kept  long  in  waiting.  The  line  of  Bavarian 
kings  has  perhaps  little  title  to  our  respect. 
The  Ludwig  of  fifty  years  ago  was  a  voluptuary, 
vacillating,  like  another  Louis  Quinze,  between 
debauchery  and  a  weak  pietism.  He  probably 
merited  the  cuts  of  the  relentless  scourge  of 
Heine  than  which  no  instrument  of  chastisement 
was  ever  more  unsparing,  and  which  in  his  case 
was  put  to  its  most  merciless  use;  but  he  loved 
art  and  lavished  his  revenues  upon  pictures, 
statues,  and  churches,  which  the  world  admires, 
imparting  a  benefit,  though  his  subjects  groaned. 
His  successor,  whom  I  saw,  was  a  man  morbid 
and  without  force,  who  early  came  to  a  sorrowful 
end.  His  redeeming  quality  was  a  fine  aesthetic 
taste,  which  he  had  no  doubt  through  heredity, 
together  with  a  sad  burden  of  disease.  The 
world  remembers  kindly  that  he  was  a  prodigal 
patron  of  art. 

I  went  to  Heidelberg  in  February,  1870,  bent 
upon  a  quiet  year  of  study   in  Germany  and 


144 


THe  Last  Leaf 


France.  Fate  had  a  different  programme  for 
me.  My  plans  were  badly  interfered  with  but 
to  see  Europe  in  such  a  turmoil  was  an  experi- 
ence well  worth  having.  Heidelberg  that  spring 
was  very  peaceful.  The  ice  in  the  Neckar  on 
which  skaters  were  disporting  on  my  arrival 
passed  out  in  due  course  of  time  to  the  Rhine, 
the  foliage  broke  forth  in  glory  on  the  noble 
hills  and  the  nightingales  came  back  to  sing  in 
the  ivy  about  the  storied  ruins.  There  was  no 
suggestion  in  the  air  of  cannon  thunder.  At 
Berlin,  however,  as  I  have  described,  I  found 
things  wearing  a  warlike  air.  I  was  eager  to 
perfect  my  German  and  sought  chances  to  talk 
with  all  whom  I  met,  and  often  had  pleasant 
converse  with  the  young  soldiers  who  when  off 
duty  numerously  flocked  to  the  gardens  and 
street  corners.  I  recall  in  particular  three 
young  soldiers  whose  subsequent  fate  I  should 
like  to  know.  The  first  was  a  handsome  young 
grenadier  who  had  talked  with  me  affably  as  we 
stood  together  screened  by  the  bush  in  the  garden 
of  the  New  Palace  at  Potsdam  watching  the  fam- 
ily of  the  Crown  Prince,  that  beautiful  forenoon 
in  May.  .  .  .  When  I  told  him  I  had  myself 
mitgemacht  the  Civil  War  in  America  he  at  once 
accorded  me  respect  as  a  veteran.  I  think  he 
was  a  Freiwilliger,  one  of  the  class,  who,  having 
reached  a  high  status  in  the  Gymnasium,  en- 
joyed the  privilege  of  a  shorter  term  of  service. 
He  had  the  bearing  of  a  cultivated  gentleman 


.Among  tKe  RanK  and  File  145 

and  there  was  strength  in  his  firm  young  face 
which  I  have  no  doubt  made  him  a  good  soldier 
in  the  time  of  stress.  We  shook  hands  at  last 
in  the  friendliest  way  and  I  saw  him  no  more. 
A  few  days  later  the  train  in  which  I  was  riding 
stopped  at  Erfurt  and  among  the  groups  at  the 
station  was  one  that  interested  me  much.  In 
the  centre  stood  a  sturdy  young  Uhlan  gaudy  in 
full  dress  which  I  fancied  he  had  only  lately 
assumed,  his  stature  was  increased  by  his  lofty 
horse-hair  plume  and  he  wore  his  corselet  over 
a  uniform  in  which  there  was  many  a  dye.  A 
bevy  of  pretty  girls  thronged  around  him,  freshly 
beautiful  after  the  German  type,  blond  and  blue- 
eyed  in  attractive  summer  draperies,  and  I 
speculated  pleasantly  as  to  which  among  them 
were  sisters  and  which  sweethearts.  As  the 
train  departed  the  young  Uhlan  climbed  into 
my  compartment  and  we  sat  vis-a-vis  as  we  rode 
on  through  the  country.  He  was  a  frank  in- 
genuous boy  of  twenty  with  eyes  that  danced 
with  life,  and  a  mobile  play  of  features.  My 
claim  that  I  had  seen  service  in  the  tented 
field  again  served  me  in  good  stead  as  an  intro- 
duction ;  it  was  a  passport  to  his  confidence  and 
I  had  a  pleasant  hour  or  two  with  him  until 
he  left  me  at  length  at  his  rendezvous. 

Best  of  all  I  remember  a  third  encounter. 
When  I  stepped  from  my  car  at  Weimar  I  asked 
a  direction  from  a  young  grenadier  off  duty  who 
stood  at  hand  on  the  platform.      He  too  pos- 


146  THe  Last  Leaf 

sessed  the  usual  Teutonic  vigour  and  strength. 
A  conversation  sprang  up  in  which  I  explained 
that  I  was  an  American  and  desired  to  see  as 
well  as  I  could  in  a  few  hours  the  interesting 
things  in  that  little  city  so  quiet  and  renowned. 
I  had  found  out  by  this  time  that  my  small 
veteranship  was  a  good  asset  and  paraded  it 
for  all  it  was  worth  and  as  usual  it  told.  He 
was  off  duty  for  a  few  hours  and  had  never 
visited  the  shrines  of  Weimar,  and  if  I  had  no 
objection  he  would  like  to  go  wTith  me  on  my 
tour  of  inspection,  so  together  we  walked  through 
those  shadowed  streets,  which  seemed  to  be 
haunted  even  in  that  bright  sunshine  by  the 
ghosts  of  the  great  men  who  have  walked  in 
them.  We  saw  the  homes  of  Goethe  and 
Schiller,  the  noble  statues  of  the  DicJiter-Paar, 
and  the  old  theatre  behind  it  in  which  were 
first  performed  the  masterpieces  of  the  German 
drama.  We  went  together  to  the  cemetery  and 
descending  into  the  crypt  of  the  mausoleum 
stood  by  the  coffins  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  the 
men  most  illustrious  in  German  letters.  It  was 
a  memorable  day  of  my  life,  the  outward  con- 
ditions perfect,  the  June  sunshine,  the  wealth 
of  lovely  foliage,  the  bird  songs,  and  right  at 
hand  the  homes  and  haunts  of  the  inspired 
singers  whom  I  especially  reverenced.  I  was 
most  fortunate  in  my  companionship,  the  bear- 
ing of  the  youth  was  marked  by  no  flippancy, 
he  venerated  as  I  did  the  lofty  spirits  into  whose 


Soldiery  of  France  147 

retreats  we  had  penetrated.  He  was  familiar 
with  their  masterpieces  and  we  felt  for  them  a 
like  appreciation.  His  soldierly  garb  accorded 
perhaps  ill  with  the  peaceful  suggestions  of  the 
hour  and  place,  but  in  his  mind  plainly  the  sen- 
timent lay  deep,  a  warm  recognition  of  what 
gave  his  country  its  best  title  to  greatness.  We 
took  thought  too  of  Wieland  and  looked  in 
silence  at  the  fine  statue  of  Herder  standing 
before  the  church  in  which  he  long  ministered; 
but  the  supreme  personages  for  us  were  Goethe 
and  Schiller.  What  became  of  my  sympathetic 
young  soldier  I  have  never  known.  If  he  es- 
caped from  Mars-la-Tour  and  Gravelotte  and 
Sedan  I  am  sure  that  he  must  have  matured 
into  a  high-souled  man. 

I  had  an  opportunity,  during  a  visit  to  Strass- 
burg  in  the  spring,  to  see  the  soldiery  of  France. 
At  the  time  the  prestige  of  the  Second  Empire 
was  at  its  height,  Magenta  and  Solferino  were 
considerable  battles  and  the  French  had  won 
them.  Turcos  and  Zouaves  had  long  passed  in 
the  world  as  soldiers  of  the  best  type  and  in 
our  Civil  War  we  had  copied  zealously  their 
fantastic  apparel  and  drill.  When  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War  broke  out  the  world  felt  that 
Germany  had  the  hardest  of  nuts  to  crack  and 
in  many  a  mind  the  forecast  was  that  France 
would  be  the  victor,  but  even  to  my  limited  judg- 
ment the  shortcomings  of  the  French  troops  were 
plain.    They  were  inferior  in  physique,  lacking  in 


148  The  Last  Leaf 

trimness  and  even  in  cleanliness,  and  imperfectly 
disciplined.  I  wondered  if  the  rather  slovenly  ill- 
trained  battalions  of  small  pale  men  could  stand 
up  against  the  prompt  rigid  alignment  of  the 
broad-shouldered  six-footers  I  had  seen  manoeuv- 
ring on  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine. 

I  had  received  word  in  the  spring  from  my 
bankers  in  Paris  that  my  letter  of  credit  was 
not  in  regular  shape  and  they  advised  me  to 
draw  at  Berlin  a  sum  of  money  sufficient  for 
present  needs  and  transmit  the  letter  to  them, 
promising  to  adjust  the  matter  in  such  a  way 
that  both  they  and  I  would  be  relieved  of  some 
inconvenience.  In  June  I  drew  a  small  sum 
and  sent  my  letter  to  Paris  in  accordance  with 
their  instructions,  the  agreement  being  that  I 
was  to  call  a  month  or  so  later  on  the  corre- 
spondents at  Munich  of  the  Paris  bankers  and 
receive  from  them  the  corrected  letter.  I  then 
travelled  as  far  as  Vienna  where  all  unforeseen 
the  news  startled  me  of  the  outbreak  of  the  war. 
I  hurried  to  Munich,  my  little  store  of  money 
being  by  that  time  much  depleted.  At  the  bank- 
ing house  I  learned  to  my  consternation  that  they 
had  heard  nothing  of  me  or  my  letter  of  credit. 
Still  worse,  there  was  no  prospect  of  hearing,  com- 
munication with  Paris  was  completely  broken  off. 
The  rumour  was  that  McMahon  had  crossed  the 
Rhine  at  Strassburg  with  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  men  on  the  march  to  interpose  be- 
tween Southern  and  Northern  Germany.      The 


My  Strait  at  Munich  149 

house  had  not  heard  from  Paris  and  could  not 
expect  to  hear.     Acting  on  their  advice  I  sent 
a    distressful     telegram     roundabout     through 
Switzerland  to  Paris.     There  was  a  possibility 
that  such  a  message  might  go  through;  other- 
wise there  was  no  hope.     I  then  spent  at  Munich 
one  of  the  most  anxious  weeks  of  my  life.     I 
was  nearer  the  pavement  than  I  have  ever  been 
before  or  since.    There  was  a  charming  German 
family  at  the  inn  at  which  I  stopped,  gentle, 
courteous  people,  father,  mother,  and  a   little 
blue-eyed  daughter.     When  the  little  girl  found 
I  was  from  America  I  can  now  see  her  innocent 
wide-open  eyes  as  she  asked  me  if  I  had  ever 
seen   an   Indian.      I  could  tell  her  some  good 
stories  of  Indians  for  in  boyhood  I  had  lived 
near  a  reservation  of  Senecas,  at  that  time  to  a 
large  extent,  in  their  primitive  state.     When  I 
ventured  one  day  to  tell  the  polite  father  of  my 
present  embarrassment  I  at  once  noticed  a  sud- 
den cooling  off.     The  little  girl  no  longer  came 
to   talk   with   me   and   the   family   held   aloof. 
Plainly  I  had  become  an  object  of  suspicion,  I 
was  now  penniless,  my  story  might  be  true  or 
perhaps  I  was  paving  the  way  for  asking  a  loan. 
How  could  he  tell  that  I  was  not  a  dead-beat? 
I  was  really  in  a  strait.     The  Americans  had 
very  generally  left  the  city  in  consequence  of 
the  turmoil.     I  could  hear  of  no  one  excepting 
our  Consul  who  was  still  at  his  post.     Calling 
upon  him  and  telling  my  story,  I  found  him  cool 


150  The  Last  Leaf 

to  the  point  of  rudeness.  I  had  excellent  letters 
from  Bancroft  and  others  which  I  showed  him 
and  which  ought  to  have  secured  me  a  respectful 
hearing.  I  asked  only  for  sympathy  and  counsel 
but  I  received  neither,  and  could  not  have  been 
treated  worse  if  I  had  been  a  proved  swindler. 
The  Consul  afterwards  wrote  a  book  in  which 
he  told  of  experiences  with  inconvenient  coun- 
trymen who  had  recourse  to  him  in  their  straits, 
and  possibly  I  myself  may  have  figured  as  one 
of  his  examples.  My  feeling  is  that  he  was  a 
man  not  fit  for  his  place,  for  in  the  circum- 
stances he  might  certainly  have  shown  some 
kindness.  My  few  pieces  of  silver  jingled  drear- 
ily in  my  pocket;  perhaps  my  best  course  would 
be  to  enlist  in  the  German  army.  I  thought  the 
cause  a  just  one  for  the  atmosphere  had  made 
me  a  good  German,  and  as  a  soldier  I  might  at 
least  earn  my  bread.  To  my  joy,  however,  in 
one  of  my  daily  visits  to  the  banking  house  the 
courteous  young  partner  told  me  that  a  telegram 
had  come  in  some  roundabout  way  from  Paris 
and  they  were  prepared  to  pay  me  the  full 
amount  on  my  letter  of  credit.  I  clutched  the 
money,  two  pretty  cylinders  of  gold  coin  done 
up  in  white  paper,  which  I  sewed  securely  into 
the  waist-band  of  my  trousers  and  felt  an  instant 
strengthening  of  nerve  and  self-respect. 

I  departed  then  for  Switzerland  where  I  en- 
joyed a  delightful  fortnight.  The  rebound  from 
my  depression  imparted  a  fine  morale.     Switzer- 


A  Deserted  Switzerland  151 

land  was  practically  deserted,  no  French  or 
Germans  were  there  for  they  had  enough  to  do 
with  the  war;  the  English  for  the  most  part 
stayed  at  home,  for  Europe  could  only  be 
crossed  with  difficulty,  and  the  crowd  from 
America  too  was  deterred  by  the  danger.  In- 
stead of  the  throngs  at  the  great  points  of  in- 
terest, the  visitors  counted  by  twos  and  threes. 
The  guides  and  landlords  were  obsequious.  We 
few  strangers  had  the  Alps  to  ourselves  and  they 
were  as  lavish  of  their  splendours  to  the  handful 
as  to  the  multitude.  At  Geneva  at  last  I  found 
letters  from  home  which  caused  me  anxiety;  I 
was  referred  for  later  news  to  letters  which  w7ere 
to  be  sent  to  Paris;  so  there  was  nothing  for 
it  but  for  me  to  cross  France,  though  by  that 
time  France  had  become  a  camp.  Fortunately 
I  had  met  in  Switzerland  an  American  friend 
who  was  proficient  in  French  as  I  was  not  and 
who  likewise  found  it  necessary  to  go  to  Paris, 
and  we  two  started  together.  After  crossing 
the  frontier  we  found  no  regular  trains;  those 
that  ran  wrere  taken  up  for  the  most  part  by 
the  multitudes  of  conscripts  hurrying  into 
armies  that  were  undergoing  disaster  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Metz.  The  case  of  two  Ameri- 
can strangers  was  a  precarious  one  involved  in 
such  a  mass,  with  food  even  very  uncertain  and 
the  likelihood  of  being  side-tracked  at  any  sta- 
tion, but  we  were  both  strong  and  light-hearted 
and  I   felt  at   my  waist-band  the  comfortable 


152  THe  Last  Leaf 

contact  of  my  bright  yellow  Napoleons  which 
would  pull  us  through.  Constantly  we  beheld 
scenes  of  the  greatest  interest.  The  August 
landscape  smiled  its  best  about  us,  we  passed 
Dijon  and  many  another  old  storied  city  famous 
in  former  wars,  and  now  again  humming  with  the 
military  life  with  which  they  had  been  so  many 
times  familiar.  The  Mobiles  came  thronging  to 
every  depot  from  the  vineyards  and  fields  and 
the  remoter  villages.  As  yet  they  were  usually 
in  picturesque  peasant  attire,  young  farmers  in 
blouses  or  with  bretelles  crossing  in  odd  fashion 
the  queer  shirts  they  wore.  Careless  happy-go- 
lucky  boys  chattering  in  the  excitement  of  the 
new  life  which  they  were  entering,  only  half-in- 
formed as  to  the  catastrophes  which  were  taking 
place,  but  the  mothers  and  sisters,  plain  country 
women  in  short  skirts,  quaint  bodices  and  caps, 
looked  upon  their  departure  with  anxious  faces. 
I  wTas  familiar  enough  with  such  scenes  in  our 
own  CivU  War;  thousands  of  those  boys  were 
never  to  return. 

Reaching  Paris  we  found  an  atmosphere  of 
depression.  A  week  or  two  before  the  streets 
had  resounded  with  the  Marseillaise  and  echoed 
with  the  fierce  cry,  "  A  Berlin !  A  Berlin ! " 
That  confidence  had  all  passed,  I  heard  the 
Marseillaise  sung  only  once,  and  that  in  dis- 
heartened perfunctory  fashion,  perhaps  by  order 
of  the  authorities  in  a  futile  attempt  to  stimulate 
courage  that  was  waning.     Rage  and  mortifica- 


Arrival  in  Paris  153 

tion  over  the  fast-accumulating  German  suc- 
cesses possessed  the  hearts  of  men.  In  the 
squares  companies  of  civilians  were  industriously 
drilling,  often  in  the  public  places  men  wearing 
hospital  badges  extended  salvers  to  the  passers-by 
asking  for  contributions,  "  Pour  les  blesses, 
monsieur,  pour  less  blesses ! "  Now  and  then 
well-disciplined  divisions  crossed  the  Place  de 
la  Concorde,  the  regiments  stacking  arms  for 
a  brief  halt.  I  studied  them  close  at  hand ;  these 
at  least  looked  as  might  have  looked  the  soldiers 
of  the  First  Empire,  strong  and  resolute,  with 
an  evident  capacity  for  taking  care  of  them- 
selves even  in  the  small  matter  of  cooking  their 
soup,  and  providing  for  their  needs  there  on  the 
asphalt.  Their  officers  were  soldierly  figures  on 
horseback,  dressed  for  rough  work,  and  the 
gaitered  legs,  with  the  stout  shoes  below  dusty 
already  from  long  marching,  were  plainly  capable 
of  much  more.  There  was  a  pathos  about  it  all, 
however,  a  marked  absence  of  elan  and  en- 
thusiasm, the  faces  under  the  kepis  were  firm 
and  strong  enough  but  they  had  little  hope. 
Nothing  so  paralyses  a  soldier  as  want  of  con- 
fidence in  the  leadership  and  these  poor  fellows 
had  lost  that.  The  regiments  passed  on  in  turn, 
the  sunlight  glittering  on  their  arms.  Through 
the  vista  of  the  boulevard  the  eagles  of  the 
Second  Empire  rose  above,  the  grave  colonels 
were  conspicuous  at  the  head,  and  the  drum- 
beats, choked  by  the  towering  buildings,  sounded 


154  The  Last  Leaf 

a  melancholy  muffled  march  that  was  befitting. 
It  was  the  scene  pictured  by  Detaille  in  Le 
Regiment  qui  Passe.  Could  he  have  been  with  us 
on  the  curbstone  making  his  studies?  It  was 
indeed  for  them  a  funeral  march,  for  they  were 
on  they  way  to  Sedan.  The  Prussians,  it  was 
said,  were  within  four  days'  march  of  the  city, 
and  the  barrier  at  Metz  had  been  completely 
broken  down. 

In  most  minds  Paris  is  associated  with  gayety, 
my  Paris,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  solemn  spot 
darkened  by  an  impending  shadow  of  calamity. 
The  theatres  were  closed.  No  one  was  admitted 
to  the  Invalides,  so  that  I  could  not  see  the  tomb 
of  Napoleon.  The  Madeleine  was  open  for  ser- 
vice, but  deep  silence  prevailed.  In  the  great 
spaces  of  the  temple  the  robed  priests  bowed 
before  the  altar  and  noiseless  groups  of  wor- 
shippers knelt  on  the  pavement.  It  was  a  time 
for  earnest  prayers.  The  Louvre  was  still  open 
and  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  see  the  Venus 
of  Milo,  though  a  day  or  two  after  I  believe  it 
was  taken  from  its  pedestal  and  carefully  con- 
cealed. The  expectation  was  of  something  dread- 
ful and  still  the  city  did  not  take  in  the  sorrow 
which  lay  before  it.  "  Do  you  think  the  Prus- 
sians will  bombard  Paris?  "  I  heard  a  man  ex- 
claim, his  voice  and  manner  indicating  that  such 
a  thing  was  incredible,  but  the  Prussian  cannon 
were  close  at  hand.  For  our  part,  my  companion 
and  I  thought  we  were  in  no  especial  danger. 


In  Danger  on  the  Seine  155 

We  quartered  ourselves  comfortably  at  a  pension, 
walked  freely  about  the  streets,  and  saw  what 
could  be  seen  with  the  usual  zest  of  healthy 
young  travellers.  The  little  steamboats  were 
still  plying  on  the  Seine  and  we  took  one  at  last 
for  the  trip  that  opens  to  one  so  much  that 
is  beautiful  and  interesting  in  architecture  and 
history.  It  was  a  lovely  afternoon  even  for 
summer  and  we  passed  in  and  out  under  the 
superb  arches  of  the  bridges,  beholding  the 
noble  apse  of  Notre  Dame  with  the  twin  towers 
rising  beyond,  structures  associated  with  grim 
events  of  the  Revolution,  the  masonry  of  the 
quays  and  the  master  work  of  Haussmann  who 
was  then  putting  a  new  face  upon  the  old  city. 
Now  all  was  bright  and  no  thought  of  danger 
entered  our  minds  as  we  revelled  in  the  pleasures 
of  such  an  excursion.  At  length  as  we  stood 
on  the  deck  we  became  aware  that  we  were  un- 
dergoing careful  scrutiny  from  a  considerable 
group  who  for  the  most  part  made  up  our 
fellow-passengers.  We  had  had  no  thought  of 
ourselves  as  especially  marked.  My  clothes, 
however,  had  been  made  in  Germany  and  had 
peculiarities  no  doubt  which  indicated  as  much. 
I  was  fairly  well  grounded  in  French  but  had 
no  practice  in  speaking.  In  trying  to  talk 
French,  my  tongue  in  spite  of  me  ran  into 
German,  which  I  had  been  speaking  constantly 
for  six  months.  This  was  particularly  the  case 
if  I  was  at  all  embarrassed;  my  face  and  figure, 


156  The  Last  Leaf 

moreover,  were  plainly  Teutonic  and  not  Latin. 
The  French  ascribed  their  disasters  largely  to 
the  fact  that  German  spies  were  everywhere 
prying  into  the  conditions,  and  reporting  every 
assailable  point  and  element  of  weakness.  This 
belief  was  well  grounded ;  the  Germans  probably 
knew  France  better  than  the  French  themselves 
and  skilfully  adapted  their  attacks  to  the  lacks 
and  negligences  which  the  swarming  spies  laid 
bare.  The  group,  of  whose  scrutiny  we  had  be- 
come aware,  was  made  up  of  ouvriers  and  ouvri- 
eres,  the  men  in  the  invariable  blouse,  with  dark 
matted  hair  and  black  eyes,  sometimes  with  a 
ratlike  keenness  of  glance  as  they  surveyed  us. 
The  women  were  roughly  dressed,  sometimes  in 
sabots,  with  heads  bare  or  surmounted  by  conical 
caps.  They  belonged  to  the  proletariat,  the  class 
out  of  which  had  come  in  the  Reign  of  Terror  the 
sans-culoites  of  evil  memory  and  the  tricoteuses 
who  had  sat  knitting  about  the  guillotine,  the 
class  which,  within  a  few  months,  was  again  to 
set  the  world  aghast  as  the  mob  of  La  Commune. 
As  we  stood  disconcerted  by  their  intent  gaze, 
they  put  their  heads  together  and  talked  in  low 
and  rapid  tones;  then  their  spokesman  ap- 
proached us,  a  man  of  polite  bearing  but  omi- 
nously stern.  He  was  not  a  clumsy  fellow,  but 
darkly  forceful  and  direct,  a  man  capable  of  a 
quick,  desperate  deed.  At  the  moment  there  was 
the  grim  tiger  in  their  eyes  and  from  the  soft 
paw  the  swift  protrusion  of  the  cruel  claw.     One 


A  L\*cKy  Passport  157 

thought  of  the  wild  revolutionary  song,  "  Qa  ga, 
ga  ira,  les  aristocrats  k  la  lanterne !  "  They  were 
the  children  of  the  mob  that  had  sung  that  song. 
With  a  bow,  the  spokesman  said :  "  Messieurs, 
we  think  you  are  Germans  and  we  wish 
to  know  if  we  are  right."  We  protested  that 
we  were  Americans,  but  the  spokesman  said  he 
was  unconvinced,  and  as  he  pressed  for  further 
evidence  I  gave  way  to  my  companion  whose 
readier  French  could  deal  better  with  the  situa- 
tion. He  demanded  to  see  our  passports  with 
which  fortunately  we  were  both  provided;  I  had 
not  thought  of  a  passport  as  a  necessity,  and 
almost  by  chance  had  procured  one  the  week 
before  from  our  Minister  in  Switzerland,  a  care- 
ful description,  vouching  for  my  American  citi- 
zenship, signed  and  sealed  by  the  United  States 
official.  This  perhaps  saved  my  life.  We  sur- 
rendered our  passports  to  our  interrogator;  he 
carried  them  back  to  the  throng  behind  him  who 
were  now  glowering  angrily  at  us,  as  they  chat- 
tered among  themselves.  Half-amused  and  half- 
alarmed,  we  waited  while  the  documents  were 
passed  from  hand  to  hand,  carefully  conned  and 
inspected.  We  could  not  believe  that  we  were 
in  danger,  here  in  the  bright  day  in  beautiful 
Paris,  with  the  sacred  towers  of  Notre  Dame 
soaring  close  at  hand.  There  were  no  gendarmes 
on  the  boat  or  on  the  quays,  but  how  could  it 
be  that  we  needed  protection?  After  a  quarter 
of  an  hour's  suspense,  during  which  there  had 


158  The  Last  Leaf 

been  a  voluble  counselling  among  the  group,  the 
spokesman  came  forth  again  with  our  passports 
in  hand  carefully  folded,  these  he  returned  to 
us,  touching  his  hat  with  a  stiff  and  formal  bow. 
"  We  have  persuaded  ourselves,"  said  he,  "  that 
you  are  what  you  claim  to  be,  Americans,  and 
it  is  fortunate  for  you  that  it  is  so,  for  we  had 
intended  to  throw  you  into  the  Seine  as  Prus- 
sian spies."  Here  was  a  surprise  indeed!  The 
group  then  dispersed  about  the  boat  apparently 
satisfied.  Still  rather  amused  than  alarmed  we 
pocketed  our  passports.  Under  the  arch  of  one 
of  the  stately  bridges  close  by,  the  Seine  flowed 
in  heavy  shadows  on  its  way,  and  we  looked 
down  upon  the  dark  waters.  Throbbing  with 
life  as  we  were,  could  it  be  possible  that  we 
had  just  escaped  a  grave  in  its  watery  embrace? 
Presently  we  landed  light-hearted,  and  were 
again  in  the  streets,  but  in  days  that  followed 
immediately  my  heart  was  often  in  my  throat, 
as  I  read  in  the  papers  of  the  corpses  of  men 
taken  out  of  the  river  who  undoubtedly  had  been 
thrown  in  under  suspicion  of  being  German  spies. 
After  a  sojourn  of  not  quite  a  week  in  Paris 
we  made  up  our  minds  it  was  no  place  for  us. 
My  plans  for  study  were  quite  broken  up,  it 
was  scarcely  possible  to  get  back  to  Germany 
and  nothing  could  be  done  in  France.  I  had 
letters  which  in  a  time  of  peace  would  have 
opened  the  way  for  me  to  many  a  pleasant  circle. 
My  intention  had  been  to  study  for  some  time 


France  Left  BeKind  159 

in  France,  but  under  the  circumstances  it  would 
be  a  comfortable  thing  to  have  the  Atlantic  roll- 
ing between  me  and  Europe,  and  therefore,  I 
prepared  to  depart  for  home.  At  the  pension, 
on  the  day  I  had  fixed  for  departure,  while 
coming  down  the  staircase  waxed  and  highly 
polished,  I  slipped  and  fell  heavily,  so  bruising 
my  knee  that  I  was  nearly  crippled.  Fortu- 
nately no  bones  were  broken  and  with  much 
pain  I  managed  to  hobble  to  the  official  from 
whom  I  must  obtain  a  pass  to  leave  the  city. 
I  set  out  for  the  iNorth,  on  almost  the  last  train 
that  left  the  city,  at  the  end  of  August,  The 
sights  were  gloomy,  the  towns  which  wTe  passed 
seemed  associated  with  ancient  bloodshed.  We 
touched  St.  Quentin  and  crossed  the  field  of 
Malplaquet,  and  finally  near  Mons  passed  the 
Belgian  frontier.  Marlborough  and  the  names 
associated  with  former  wars  were  suggested  to 
my  thoughts  by  these  historic  spots.  I  was 
heartily  glad  when  at  length  in  cheerful  Brus- 
sels I  was  beyond  danger.  On  the  fateful  day 
when  the  Second  Empire  went  down  at  Sedan, 
I  was  on  the  field  of  Waterloo  where  half  a 
century  before  the  First  Empire  had  perished. 
The  news  of  the  morning  made  it  plain  that 
on  that  day  the  great  debacle  was  to  culminate. 
We  listened  all  day  for  cannon  thunder;  under 
certain  conditions  of  the  atmosphere  the  sound 
of  heavy  guns  may  reverberate  as  far  perhaps, 
as  from  Sedan  to  Waterloo.    That  day,  however, 


160  THe  Last  Leal 

there  was  no  ominous  grumble  from  the  east- 
ward, the  sky  was  cloudless,  the  flowers  bloomed 
about  the  Chateau  d'Hougomont,  and'  the  birds 
twittered  in  peace  at  the  point  before  La  Haie- 
Sainte  to  which  the  First  Napoleon  advanced 
in  the  evening  and  where  for  the  last  time  lie 
heard  the  shout  then  so  long  familiar  but  for- 
ever after  unheard,  "Vive  FEmpereur!"  Hu- 
miliation now  after  half  a  century  had  over- 
whelmed in  turn  his  unhappy  successor. 


CHAPTER  VI 

AMERICAN  HISTORIANS 

AS  a  Harvard  under-graduate  I  roomed  for  a 
time  in  Hollis  8,  a  room  occupied  in  turn 
by  Willian  H.  Prescott  and  James  Schouler,  and 
perhaps  I  may  attribute  to  some  contagion 
caught  as  a  transmittendum  in  that  apartment, 
an  itch  for  writing  history  which  has  brought 
some  trouble  to  me  and  to  the  rather  limited 
circle  of  readers  whom  I  have  reached.  I  re- 
member debating,  as  a  boy,  whether  the  more  de- 
sirable fame  fell  to  the  hero  in  a  conflict  or  to  the 
scribe  who  told  the  story.  Whose  place  would 
one  rather  have?  That  of  Timoleon  and  Nicias 
or  of  Plutarch  and  Thucydides  their  celebrants? 
But  the  celebrants,  no  doubt,  seemed  to  their 
contemporaries  very  insignificant  figures  com- 
pared to  the  champions  whose  fame  they  per- 
petuated. The  historians  of  America  are  a 
goodly  company,  scarcely  less  worthy  than  the 
champions  whose  deeds  they  have  chronicled. 
With  most  men  who,  during  the  last  seventy- 
five  years,  have  written  history  in  America,  I 
have  had  contact,  sometimes  a  mere  glimpse, 

ii  161 


162  The  Last  Leaf 

sometimes  intimacy.  Washington  Irving  and 
Prescott  I  never  saw,  though  as  to  the  latter  I 
have  just  been  making  him  responsible  to  some 
extent  for  my  own  little  proclivity.  Parkman, 
I  only  saw  sitting  with  his  handsome  Grecian 
face  relieved  against  a  dignified  background  as 
he  sat  on  the  stage  among  the  Corporation  of 
Harvard  University.  Motley  I  have  only  seen 
as  he  stood  with  iron-grey  curls  over  a  ruddy, 
strenuous  countenance  topping  a  figure  of  vigor- 
ous symmetry  as  he  spoke  with  animation  at  a 
scholars'  dinner.  But  George  Bancroft,  Justin 
Winsor,  and  John  Fiske  I  knew  well,  the  last 
being  in  particular  one  of  my  best  friends.  I 
could  tell  stories  too,  of  the  living  lights,  but 
am  concerned  here  with  the  ghosts  and  not  with 
men  still  red-blooded. 

I  first  saw  George  Bancroft  when  he  was 
Minister  at  Berlin.  He  had  read  a  little  book 
of  mine,  The  Color  Guard,  my  diary  as  a  Cor- 
poral of  the  Nineteenth  Army  Corps,  scribbled 
off  on  my  cap-top,  my  gun-stock,  or  indeed  my 
shoe-sole,  or  whatever  desk  I  could  extemporise 
as  we  marched  and  fought.  That  book  gave  me 
some  claim  to  his  notice,  but  a  better  claim  was 
that  his  wife  was  Elizabeth  Davis,  whom  more 
than  a  hundred  years  ago  my  grandfather  of  the 
ancient  First  Parish  in  Plymouth  had  baptised 
and  who  as  a  girl  had  been  my  mother's  play- 
mate in  gardens  near  Plymouth  Rock.  I  did  not 
presume  upon  sucli  credentials  as  these  to  ob- 


George  Bancroft  163 

trude  myself,  and  was  pleasantly  surprised  one 
day  by  a  note  inviting  me  to  the  Embassy.  It 
was  a  retired  house  near  the  Thiergarten.  I 
found  Mr.  Bancroft  embarrassed  with  duties 
which  in  those  days  gave  trouble.  German  emi- 
grants returning  after  prosperous  years  to  the 
Fatherland  were  often  pounced  upon,  the  valid- 
ity of  their  American  citizenship  denied,  and 
taxes  and  military  service  demanded.  It  was 
tough  work  to  straighten  out  such  knots  and 
the  Minister  was  in  the  midst  of  such  a  tangle. 
But  his  high,  broad  forehead  smoothed  presently, 
and  his  grey  eyes  grew  genial,  while  the  vivacious 
features  spoke  with  the  very  cordial  impulse 
with  which  he  greeted  one  who  had  heard  the 
bullets  of  the  Civil  War  whistle  and  was  the 
son  of  his  wife's  old  friend.  Another  tie  was 
that  his  father,  Dr.  Aaron  Bancroft  of  Worcester, 
and  my  grandfather,  had  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder  in  the  controversy  of  a  century  ago 
which  rent  apart  New  England  Congregational- 
ism. Presently  we  sat  down  to  lunch,  a  party 
of  three,  for  the  board  wTas  graced  by  the  pre- 
sence of  Mrs.  Bancroft,  a  woman  of  fine  accom- 
plishments polished  through  contact  with  high 
society  in  many  lands,  and  a  gifted  talker. 
Many  readers  have  found  her  published  letters 
charming.  The  talk  was  largely  of  the  Civil 
War  and  Bancroft's  words  were  in  the  best  sense 
patriotic.  During  and  before  that  period  his 
course  had  been  much  disapproved.    He  had  been 


164  The  Last  Leaf 

Collector  of  Boston  under  Democratic  auspices 
and  had  served  under  Polk  as  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  where  he  laid  the  country  lastingly  under 
debt  by  establishing  the  Naval  Academy  at  Anna- 
polis. I  do  not  approve  or  condemn,  but  I  felt  him 
wisely  and  warmly  patriotic,  deeply  concerned 
that  the  outcome  of  our  long  national  agony 
should  be  worthy  of  the  sacrifice.  The  breath 
of  a  pleasant  spring  day  pervaded  the  elegant 
apartment  while  the  birds  sang  in  the  tall  trees 
stretching  out  toward  the  forest  of  the  Thier- 
garten.  I  especially  associate  with  the  Bancrofts 
their  beautiful  outdoor  environment.  Another 
day  I  drove  with  the  Minister,  our  companions 
in  the  carriage  being  the  wife  and  the  daughter 
of  Ernst  Curtius,  to  visit  the  rose  gardens  about 
Berlin.  I  have  met  few  men  readier  or  more 
agreeable  in  conversation.  With  a  pleasant 
smile  and  intonation  he  touched  gracefully  on 
this  and  that,  sometimes  in  reminiscence.  I  re- 
member in  particular  a  vivid  setting  forth  of  an 
interview  with  Goethe  which  he  had  enjoyed  as 
a  boy  fifty  years  before.  Sometimes  his  talk 
was  of  poetry  in  general  and  I  was  much  struck 
with  his  frequent  happy  application  of  quota- 
tions to  the  little  events  of  the  drive  and  phases 
of  feeling  that  came  up  as  the  day  went  on.  The 
sun  set  gloriously,  " So  stirbt  ein  Held"  said 
Bancroft,  as  he  burst  with  feeling  into  the 
beautiful  lyric  of  which  these  words  are  a  line. 
The  best  German  poetry  seemed  to  be  at  his 


Roses  and  History  165 

tongue's  end  and  he  recited  it  with  sympathy 
and  accuracy  which  called  out  much  admiration 
from  the  cultivated  German  ladies  with  whom 
we  were  driving.  Most  interesting  of  all  was 
Bancroft's  evident  passion  for  roses.  The  gar- 
deners, as  we  stopped,  were  plainly  surprised  at 
his  knowledge  of  their  varieties  and  the  best 
methods  of  cultivation.  He  was  so  well  versed 
in  the  lore  of  the  rose  and  so  devoted  to  its 
cultivation  one  might  well  have  thought  it  his 
horse  and  not  his  hobby.  He  possessed  at  New- 
port a  rose  garden  far  famed  for  the  number  of 
its  varieties  and  the  perfection  of  the  flowers, 
and  it  was  an  interesting  sight  at  Washington 
to  see  Bancroft,  even  when  nearing  ninety,  busy 
in  his  garden  in  H  Street,  one  attendant  shield- 
ing his  light  figure  with  a  sun  umbrella,  while 
another  held  at  hand,  hoe,  shears,  and  twine,  the 
implements  to  train  and  cull.  Is  there  a  subtle 
connection  between  roses  and  history?  Park- 
man  wrote  an  elaborate  book  upon  rose  culture 
which  I  believe  is  still  of  authority,  and  John 
Fiske  had  a  conservatory  opening  out  of  his 
library  and  the  rose  of  all  flowers  was  the  one 
he  prized.  Here  is  a  neat  turn  of  McMaster. 
At  a  dinner  given  in  his  honour  a  big  bunch  of 
American  Beauties  was  opposite  to  him  as  he 
sat.  It  fell  to  me  to  make  a  welcoming  speech. 
Catching  at  the  occasion,  I  suggested  a  connec- 
tion between  roses  and  history  and  referred  to 
McMaster  close  behind  his  American  Beauties  as 


166  THe  Last  Leaf 

an  instance  in  point,  at  the  same  time  express- 
ing with  earnestness  my  strong  admiration  of 
that  good  writer's  work.  McMaster  rose,  his 
face  glowing  in  response  to  my  emphatic  com- 
pliment. His  speech  consisted  of  only  one  sen- 
tence, "  I  have  one  bond  with  the  rose,  I  blush." 
I  owe  many  favours  to  Bancroft;  the  greatest 
perhaps  that  he  allowed  me  to  consult  to  my 
heart's  content  the  papers  of  Samuel  Adams,  a 
priceless  collection  which  he  possessed.  For  this 
he  gave  me  carte  blanche  to  use  his  library  in 
Washington,  though  he  himself  was  absent,  a 
favour  which  he  said  he  had  never  accorded  to 
an  investigator  before.  It  was  an  inspiring 
place  for  a  student,  the  shelves  burdened  with 
treasures  in  manuscript  as  well  as  print.  The 
most  interesting  portrait  of  Bancroft  presents 
him  as  a  nonagenarian,  against  this  impressive 
background,  at  work  to  the  last.  The  critics  of 
our  day  minimise  Bancroft  and  his  school.  His- 
tory in  that  time  walked  in  garments  quite  too 
flowing,  it  is  said,  and  with  an  overdisplay  of 
the  Horatian  purple  patch.  Our  grandsons  may 
feel  that  the  history  of  our  time  walks  in  gar- 
ments too  sad-coloured  and  scant.  Research  and 
accuracy  are,  of  course,  primary  requisites  in 
this  field,  but  there  should  be  some  employment 
of  the  picturesque.  The  world  was  beautiful  in 
the  old  days  and  human  life  was  vivid.  Ought 
we  to  deny  to  all  this  a  warm  and  graphic  set- 
ting forth?     If  we  do  we  shall  do  it  to  our  cost. 


Justin  Winsor  167 

Is  it  the  proper  attitude  of  the  historian  simply 
to  write,  without  thought  of  anything  so  irre- 
levant as  a  reader?  Bancroft  was  a  pioneer, 
breaking  the  way  ponderously  perhaps,  but  he 
delved  faithfully.  If  the  orotund  rolls  too  sono- 
rously in  his  periods  it  was  an  excess  in  which 
his  age  upheld  him.  He  was  a  good  path-breaker 
and  ought  not  to  be  lightly  esteemed  by  those 
who  now  go  to  and  fro  with  ease  through  the 
roads  he  opened. 

My  first  touch  with  Justin  Winsor  was  in  my 
Freshman  year  at  Cambridge.  We  both  had 
rooms  under  the  roof  of  an  uncle  of  mine.  His 
room  was  afterwards  occupied,  I  believe,  by 
Theodore  Roosevelt.  It  had  been  rubbed  into 
me  by  many  snubs  that  a  vast  gulf  interposed 
between  the  Freshman  and  upper-class  man.  I 
used  to  pass  his  door  with  reverence,  for  the 
story  went  that,  even  as  a  boy,  he  had  written 
a  history  of  Duxbury,  Massachusetts.  Once 
during  his  temporary  absence,  his  door  standing 
open,  I  dared  to  step  into  the  apartment  and 
surveyed  with  awe  the  well-filled  shelves  and 
scribbled  papers ;  but  in  later  years  when  I  had 
won  some  small  title  to  notice  I  found  him  most 
kind  and  approachable.  The  abundance  of  the 
Harvard  Library  and  still  better  the  rich  ac- 
cumulations in  the  cells  of  his  own  memory  he 
held  for  general  use.  He  loaned  me  once  for 
months  at  St.  Louis  a  rarely  precious  seven- 
teenth-century book,  which  had  belonged  to  Car- 


1 68  The  Last  Leaf 

lyle,  and  whose  margins  were  sometimes  filled 
with  Carlyle's  notes.  He  imparted  freely  from 
his  own  vast  information  and  it  was  pleasant 
indeed  to  hold  a  chair  for  an  hour  or  two  in 
his  hospitable  home.  In  our  last  interview  the 
prose  and  the  solemn  romance  of  life  were 
strangely  blended.  We  had  just  heard  the  burial 
service  in  Appleton  Chapel  read  by  Phillips 
Brooks  over  the  coffin  of  James  Kussell  Lowell ; 
then  we  rode  together  on  the  crowded  platform 
of  a  street-car  to  the  grave  at  Mount  Auburn; 
a  rough  and  jostling  company  on  the  platform, 
and  in  my  mind  a  throng  of  deep  and  melancholy 
thoughts.  I  never  saw  him  again.  In  his  call- 
ing he  was  a  master  of  research  extracting  with 
unlimited  toil  the  last  fragment  of  evidence  from 
the  blindest  scribblings  of  earlier  times.  These 
results,  painfully  accumulated,  he  set  down  with 
absolute  faithfulness;  his  bibliographies  supple- 
menting his  own  contributions  and  also  those  of 
the  many  writers  whom  he  inspired  and  guided 
in  like  labours  are  exhaustive.  Rarely  is  there 
a  wisp  to  be  gleaned  where  Winsor  has  garnered. 
If  he  was  deficient  in  the  power  of  vivid  and 
picturesque  presentment,  it  is  only  that  like  all 
men  he  had  his  limitations. 

John  Fiske  I  met  soon  after  his  graduation 
at  Cambridge.  It  is  odd  to  recall  him  when  one 
thinks  of  his  later  physique,  as  a  youth  with 
fresh  ruddy  face,  tall  and  not  broad,  a  rather 
slender  pillar  of  a  man,  corniced  with  an  abund- 


John  FisKe  169 

ant  pompadour  of  brown  hair.  He  was  just  then 
making  fame  for  himself  in  the  domain  of  philo- 
sophy, contributing  to  the  New  York  World 
papers  well  charged  with  revolutionary  ideas 
which  were  then  causing  consternation,  so 
lucidly  and  attractively  formulated  that  they  in- 
terested the  most  cursory  reader.  Perhaps  John 
Fiske  ought  always  to  have  kept  to  philosophy. 
Mrs.  Mary  Hemenway,  that  princess  among 
Ladies  Bountiful,  told  me  once  the  story  of  his 
change.  He  made  to  her  a  frank  statement  of 
his  situation.  He  was  conscious  of  power  to  do 
service;  he  was  married,  had  children,  and  was 
embarrassed  with  care  about  their  bread,  butter, 
and  education  after  the  usual  fashion  of  the 
scholar.  John  Fiske  said  in  those  days  the  diffi- 
cult problem  of  his  life  was  to  get  enough  corn- 
beef  for  dinner  to  have  hash  for  breakfast  the 
next  day.  Must  he  descend  to  desk  and  court- 
room work  to  make  a  way,  or  could  a  way  be 
found  by  which  he  might  do  his  proper  task  and 
at  the  same  time  be  a  bread-winner?  "  Write 
American  history,"  said  Mrs.  Hemenway,  "  and 
I  will  stand  behind  you."  She  was  inspired  with 
the  idea  of  making  America  in  the  high  sense 
American  and  saw  in  the  young  genius  a  good 
ally.  The  chance  was  embraced  and  John  Fiske 
after  that  dipped  only  fitfully  into  philosophical 
themes,  writing,  however,  The  Destiny  of  Man, 
The  Idea  of  God,  Cosmic  Roots  of  Love  and  Self- 
sacrifice,   and   Life  Everlasting.     He   gave   his 


170  THe  Last  Leaf 

main  strength  to  a  thing  worth  while,  the 
establishment  in  America  of  Anglo-Saxon  free- 
dom. Would  he  have  served  the  world  better 
had  he  adhered  to  profound  speculations?  As 
the  patriarch  in  a  household  into  which  have 
been  born  a  dozen  children  and  grandchildren,  I 
have  had  good  opportunity  for  study.  What  so 
feeble  as  the  feebleness  of  the  babe !  It  depends 
upon  its  mother  for  its  sustenance,  almost  for 
its  breath  and  its  heart-beats.  The  sheltering 
arms  and  the  loving  breast  must  always  be  at 
hand  as  the  very  conditions  of  its  existence.  I 
have  watched  in  wife  and  daughters,  as  what 
grandsire  has  not,  the  persistent  sleepless  care 
which  alone  kept  the  baby  alive,  and  noted  the 
sweet  effusion  of  affection  which  the  need  and 
constant  care  made  to  flow  abundantly,  nor  do 
the  care  and  consequent  outflow  of  love  cease 
with  babyhood.  The  child  must  ever  be  fed, 
clothed,  trained,  and  counselled;  and  the  youth, 
too,  of  which  the  baby  is  father,  must  be  watch- 
fully guided  till  the  stature  is  completed.  The 
rod  of  Moses  smiting  the  rock  evoked  the  bene- 
ficent water,  the  unremitting  parent-care  strik- 
ing the  indifferent  heart  evokes  the  beautiful 
mother  and  father  love  which  grows  abroad.  We 
cannot  love  children  well  without  loving  others, 
their  companions,  and  at  last  the  great  worldly 
environment  in  which  they  and  we  all  are  placed. 
Hence,  from  the  extension  of  infancy,  through  a 
period  of  long  years,  proceeds  at  last  from  the 


THe  Extension  of  Infancy  171 

hearts  which  are  subjected  to  its  influence  the 
noble  thing  which  we  call  altruism:  love  for 
others  than  ourselves  and  the  other  high  spiritual 
instincts  which  are  the  crown  of  human  nature. 
The  recognition  of  the  extension  of  infancy  as 
the  source  from  which  in  our  slow  evolution 
comes  the  brightest  thing  in  the  universe  be- 
longs to  our  own  time.  It  is  perhaps  the  climax 
of  our  philosophic  speculation.  What  more 
feeble  than  the  snowflakes!  But  accumulated 
and  compressed  they  become  the  glacier  which 
may  carapace  an  entire  zone  and  determine  its 
configuration  into  mountain  and  valley.  What 
more  feeble  than  the  feebleness  of  the  babe! 
And  yet  that  multiplied  by  the  million  through 
aeons  of  time  and  over  continents  of  space  fash- 
ions humanity  after  the  sublime  pattern  shown 
on  the  Mount.  If  to  John  Fiske  belongs  the 
credit  of  first  recognising  in  the  scheme  of  evolu- 
tion the  significance  of  this  mighty  factor,  the 
extension  of  infancy  (he  himself  so  believed 
and  I  do  not  think  it  can  be  questioned  that 
he  was  the  first  to  recognise  it),  what  philo- 
sophic thinker  has  to  a  greater  extent  laid  the 
world  in  debt?  This  I  shall  not  further  discuss. 
I  am  touching  in  these  papers  only  upon  light 
and  exterior  things,  nor  am  I  competent  to  deal 
with  philosophical  problems  and  controversies. 
John  Fiske  gave  his  strength  to  the  writing  of 
lil story,  where,  too,  there  are  controversies  into 
which  I  do  not  propose  to  enter,,     I  will  only 


172  THe  Last  Leaf 

say  that  I  resent  the  account  of  him  which 
makes  him  to  have  been  a  mere  populariser 
whose  merit  lies  solely  or  for  the  most  part  in 
the  fact  that,  while  appropriating  materials  ac- 
cumulated by  others,  he  had  only  Goldsmith's 
faculty  of  making  them  graceful  and  attractive 
to  the  mass  of  readers.  His  philosophical  in- 
stinct, on  the  other  hand,  discovered,  as  few 
writers  have  done,  the  subtle  links  through 
which  in  history  facts  are  related  to  facts  and 
are  weighed  wisely,  in  the  protagonists,  the  mo- 
tives and  qualities  which  make  them  foremost 
figures.  He  saw  unerringly  where  emphasis 
should  be  put,  what  should  be  salient,  what 
subordinate.  Too  many  waiters,  German  espe- 
cially, perhaps,  have  the  fault  of  "  writing  a 
subject  to  its  dregs,"  giving  to  the  unimportant 
undue  place.  In  Fiske's  estimation  of  facts 
there  is  no  failure  of  proper  proportion,  the 
great  thing  is  always  in  the  foreground,  the 
trifle  in  shadow^  or  quite  unnoticed.  To  do  this 
accurately  is  a  fine  power.  He  delved  more 
deeply  himself  perhaps  than  many  of  his  critics 
have  been  willing  to  acknowledge,  but  I  incline 
to  say  that  his  main  service  to  history  was  in 
detecting  with  unusual  insight  the  subtle  rela- 
tions of  cause  and  effect,  links  which  other  and 
sometimes  very  able  men  failed  adequately  to 
recognise.  In  a  high  sense  he  was  indeed  a 
populariser.  He  wore  upon  himself  like  an 
ample  garment  a  splendid  erudition  under  which 


His  Love  for  Music  173 

he  moved,  however,  not  at  all  oppressed  or  tram- 
melled.    Much  of  the  lore  of  Greece,  Rome,  the 
Orient,    and   also    of   modern   peoples   was    as 
familiar  to  him  as  the  contents  of  the  morning 
papers.      With    acumen    he    selected    and    his 
memory   retained;    the   cells   of   his   capacious 
brain  somehow  held  it  ready   for  instant  use. 
With  good  discrimination  he  could  touch  lightly 
or  discourse  profoundly  as  occasion  required,  his 
learning  and  insight  always  telling  effectively, 
either  at  the  breakfast-table  of  the  plain  citizen, 
or  in  the  pages  of  the  school  text-book.     "  John," 
said  such  a  plain  man  the  other  day  to  a  friend 
who  also  had  been  in  touch  with  Fiske,  "the 
biggest  thing  that  ever  came  into  your  life  or 
mine  was  when  that  broad  thinker  familiarly 
darkened  our  doors."     The  two  men  stood  rev- 
erently under  John  Fiske's  portrait,  the  auto- 
graph signature  underneath  seeming  in  a  way 
to  connect  the  living  with  the  dead,  acknowledg- 
ing the  force  of  the  personality  which  had  made 
real  to  them  as  nothing  else  had  ever  done  the 
deepest  and  finest  things. 

John  Fiske  was  often  a  guest  in  my  home 
and  I  have  sat,  though  less  frequently,  with  him 
in  his  library  in  Berkeley  Street  in  Cambridge, 
the  flowers  from  the  conservatory  sending  their 
perfumes  among  the  crowded  books  and  the 
south  wind  breathing  pleasantly  from  the  gar- 
den which  had  been  Longfellow's,  in  the  rear, 
to  the  garden  of  Howells  in  front.     His  passion 


174  The  Last  Leaf 

for  music  was  scarcely  less  than  his  interest  in 
speculation  and  history.  He  knew  well  the 
great  composers,  and  had  himself  composed. 
Though  the  master  of  no  instrument,  he  could 
touch  the  piano  with  feeling.  He  had  a  pleasant 
baritone  voice,  and  nothing  gave  him  more  re- 
freshment after  a  week  of  study  or  lecturing 
than  to  pour  himself  out  in  song.  His  accom- 
panist had  need  not  only  of  great  technical  skill 
but  of  stout  vertebrae,  and  strong  wrists;  for 
hours  at  a  time  the  piano  stool  must  be  occu- 
pied while  the  difficult  melodies  of  various  lands 
were  unriddled  and  interpreted.  Those  were  in- 
teresting afternoons  when,  dropping  his  pen, 
he  plunged  into  music  as  a  strong  confident 
swimmer  plunges  into  the  stream  which  he 
especially  loves,  interpreting  with  warm  feeling 
Mendelssohn  and  Beethoven,  wandering  unlost 
in  the  vocal  labyrinths  of  Dvorak  and  Wagner, 
but  never  happier  than  when  interpreting  the 
emotions  of  simple  folk-songs,  or  some  noble 
Shakespearian  lyrics  like  "  Who  is  Sylvia,  what 
is  she,  that  all  the  swains  commend  her?  "  Music 
stimulated  him  to  vivacity  and  in  the  pauses 
would  come  outbursts  of  abandon.  One  day 
the  pet  dog  of  a  daughter  of  mine  ensconced 
himself  unawares  under  the  sofa  and  was  dis- 
respectfully napping  while  John  Fiske  sang.  In 
a  pause  the  philosopher  broke  into  an  animated 
declamation  over  some  matter  while  standing 
near  the  sofa,  whereat  the  pug  thinking  himself 


Story  of  the  Calf  175 

challenged  tore  out  to  the  front  with  sudden 
violent  barks.  The  two  confronted  each  other, 
the  pug  frantically  vindicating  his  dignity  while 
the  philosopher  on  his  side  fixing  his  eye  upon  the 
interrupter  declaimed  and  gesticulated.  As  to 
volubility  and  sonorousness  they  stood  about 
equal.  I  am  bound  to  say  the  pug  prevailed. 
John  Fiske  retired  in  discomfiture  while  the  pug 
was  carried  off  in  triumph  in  the  arms  of  his 
little  mistress.  He  had  fairly  barked  the  great 
man  down.  I  once  shared  with  him  the  misery 
of  being  a  butt.  In  St.  Louis  in  those  days  the 
symposium  was  held  in  honour,  and  particularly 
1ST.  O.  Nelson,  the  well-known  profit-sharing  cap- 
tain of  industry,  was  the  entertainer  of  select 
groups  whose  geniality  was  stimulated  by  modest 
potations  of  Anheuser-Bush,  in  St.  Louis  al- 
ways the  Castor  and  Pollux  in  every  convivial 
firmament.  Such  a  symposium  was  once  held 
in  special  honour  of  Dr.  Edward  Waldo  Emer- 
son, a  transient  visitor.  "  Dr.  Emerson,"  said 
a  guest,  "  in  the  diary  of  your  father  just  edited 
by  you  occurs  a  passage  which  needs  illumina- 
tion. *  Edward  and  I  tried  this  morning  for 
three  quarters  of  an  hour  to  get  the  calf  into 
the  barn  without  success.  The  Irish  girl  stuck 
her  finger  into  his  mouth  and  got  the  calf  in 
in  two  minutes.  I  like  folks  that  can  do 
things.'  Now,"  said  the  guest,  "we  all  know 
what  became  of  Emerson,  we  all  know  what  be- 
came of  Edward,  for  you  are  here  to-night,  but 


176  THe  Last  Leaf 

what  became  of  the  Irish  girl  and  the  calf?  " 
Dr.  Emerson  laughingly  explained  the  probable 
fate  of  the  girl  and  the  calf,  and  in  the  hilarity 
that  followed,  the  question  arose  as  to  why  the 
Irish  girl's  finger  had  been  so  persuasive.  I, 
city-bred  and  green  as  grass  as  to  country  lore, 
rashly  attempted  to  explain ;  the  inserted  finger 
gave  a  good  purchase  on  the  calf  which  in  its 
pain  became  at  once  tractable,  but  the  men 
present  who  had  been  farm-boys,  with  loud 
laughter  ridiculed  the  suggestion.  Did  I  not 
know  that  nature  had  provided  a  conduit 
through  which  the  needed  sustenance  was  con- 
veyed from  the  maternal  udder,  and  that  it  was 
quite  possible  to  delude  the  unsuspecting  calf 
into  the  belief  that  the  slyly  inserted  finger  was 
that  conduit?  The  triumph  of  the  Irish  girl 
was  explained,  and  I  sank  back,  covered  with 
confusion.  Fiske,  however,  blurted  out :  "  Why, 
I  never  should  have  thought  of  that  in  all  my 
life,"  whereat  he  too  became  the  target  of 
ridicule. 

I  never  saw  John  Fiske  happier  than  once 
at  Concord.  Our  host  had  invited  us  for  a 
day  and  had  prepared  a  programme  that  only 
Concord  could  furnish.  The  prelude  was  a  per- 
formance of  the  Andante  to  a  Sonata  of  Rubin- 
stein, Opus  12,  rendered  exquisitely  by  the 
daughter  of  our  host.  I  saw  the  great  frame 
of  my  fellow-guest  heave  with  emotion  while  his 
breath   came   almost   in   sobs   as  his   spirit  re- 


JoKn  FisKe  at  Concord  177 

sponded  to  the  music.  Then  came  a  canoe-trip 
on  the  river  to  which  John  Fiske  joyfully  as- 
sented though  some  of  the  rest  of  us  were  not 
without  apprehension.  Fiske  in  a  canoe  was  a 
ticklish  proposition,  but  there  he  was  at  last, 
comfortably  recumbent,  his  head  propped  up  on 
cushions,  serenely  at  ease  though  a  very  narrow 
margin  intervened  between  water-line  and  gun- 
wale. The  performer  of  the  Sonata,  who  was  as 
deft  at  the  paddle  as  she  was  at  the  piano,  served 
as  his  pilot  and  propeller  while  the  rest  of  us 
formed  an  escort  which  could  be  turned  into  a 
rescue  party  if  occasion  required.  A  stout,  ca- 
pacious rowboat  followed  immediately  in  the  wake 
of  the  canoe.  We  went  down  the  dark,  placid 
current  in  the  fine  summer  weather  to  the  Battle- 
ground, and  then  looked  into  the  solemn  forest 
aisle  which  arches  over  the  narrow  Assabeth.  The 
day  was  perfect,  the  flowers  and  birds  were  at 
their  best,  the  pleasant  nature  was  all  about  us. 
All  this  John  Fiske  drank  in  to  the  full  but 
still  more  was  he  touched  by  the  great  associa- 
tions of  the  environment.  From  the  bank  yonder 
had  been  "  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the 
world."  The  hilltops,  meadows,  the  gentle 
river  had  been  loved  and  frequented  by  Haw- 
thorne, Thoreau,  and  Emerson;  in  these  sur- 
roundings had  bloomed  forth  the  finest  flowering 
of  American  literature.  No  heart  could  be  more 
sensitive  than  was  his  to  influences  of  this  kind. 
As  we  moved  cautiously  about  him,  anxious  about 


178  The  Last  Leaf 

the  equilibrium,  though  he  was  calm,  he  dis- 
coursed with  animation.  The  afternoon  waned 
gloriously  into  the  dusk  of  the  happy  day. 

The  little  hill-town  of  Petersham  in  the  back 
of  Worcester  County  was  John  Fiske's  summer 
home,  a  spot  he  tenderly  loved.  It  is  a  retired 
place  made  very  attractive  in  later  years  through 
the  agency  of  his  brother-in-law,  who  with  wise 
and  kindly  art  has  added  to  the  natural  beauty. 
I  saw  John  Fiske  here  in  his  home  of  homes  to 
which  his  heart  clung  more  and  more  fondly  as 
his  end  approached.  The  weight  of  his  great 
body,  accumulating  morbidly  in  a  way  which 
could  not  be  counteracted,  fairly  overwhelmed 
at  last  his  bright  and  noble  life.  As  the  doctors 
put  it,  a  heart  made  for  a  frame  of  one  hundred 
and  sixty  pounds  could  not  do  the  work  for 
three  hundred.  When,  in  his  weakness,  death 
was  suggested  to  him  as  probably  near,  "  Death !  " 
said  he  simply  and  sweetly,  "  why,  that  only 
means  going  to  Petersham  to  stay !  "  and  there 
among  the  flowers  and  fields,  remote  from  the 
world,  though  his  spirit  remains  widely  and 
solemnly  pervasive,  he  has  gone  to  stay. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ENGLISH  AND  GERMAN  HISTORIANS 

WHEN  I  went  to  England  in  1886  to  col- 
lect materials  for  a  life  of  Young  Sir 
Henry  Vane,  John  Fiske  gave  me  a  letter  to  Dr. 
Richard  Garnett,  then  Superintendent  of  the 
Reading  Room  in  the  British  Museum.  He  after- 
wards became  Sir  Richard  Garnett  and  was 
promoted  to  be  Keeper  of  Printed  Books,  per- 
haps the  highest  position  among  the  librarians 
of  the  world,  a  post  to  which  he  did  honour.  Dr. 
Garnett,  slender  and  alert,  the  heaped-up  litter 
of  volumes  and  manuscripts  in  his  study  telling 
at  a  glance  where  his  tastes  lay,  was  nevertheless 
as  he  needed  to  be  most  practical  and  business- 
like. Though  an  accomplished  litterateur  touch- 
ing with  versatility  poetry,  criticism,  history, 
philosophy,  and  still  other  fields,  this  was  his 
hobby  only,  his  main  work  being  when  I  knew 
him  to  make  available  for  readers  crowding 
from  all  lands  seeking  information  of  all  kinds, 
the  treasures  of  this  wonderful  store-house.  He 
treated  me  with  the  kindest  courtesy,  but  I 
have  no  reason  to  feel  that  I  was  an  excep- 

179 


180  The  Last  Leaf 

tion.  He  stood  on  that  threshold,  a  wel- 
comer  of  all  scholars,  for  his  good  nature  was 
no  more  marked  than  the  comprehensiveness  of 
his  information  and  the  dexterity  with  which 
without  the  least  delay,  he  put  into  the  hands 
of  each  searcher  the  needed  books.  Perhaps  it 
was  an  unusual  favour  that,  influenced  no 
doubt,  by  my  good  introduction,  he  took  a  half- 
hour  out  of  his  busy  morning  to  conduct  me  him- 
self through  the  Egyptian  collection.  We  passed 
rapidly  among  statues  and  hieroglyphics,  his 
abundant  knowledge  appearing  transiently  as  he 
touched  upon  object  after  object  while  at  the 
same  time  in  an  incisive  and  witty  vein  he  spoke 
of  America  and  the  events  of  the  day.  Pausing 
at  last  before  the  great  scarabaeus  of  polished 
syenite  whose  huge  size  required  a  place  in  the 
centre  of  the  corridor,  he  said  with  a  twinkle, 
"  I  must  tell  you  a  story  about  this  of  which 
one  of  your  countrymen  is  the  hero.  I  was 
walking  with  him  here  in  the  collection  and  ex- 
pected from  him  some  expression  of  awe,  but  like 
so  many  of  you  Americans,  he  wouldn't  admit 
that  he  saw  anything  that  could  n't  be  paralleled 
in  the  United  States  until  we  stood  before  the 
scarabaeus.  Here  his  mood  changed;  his  face 
fell,  he  slowly  walked  around  the  scarabaeus 
three  times  and  then  exclaimed,  i  It 's  the  all- 
firedest,  biggest  bug  I  ever  saw  in  all  my  born 
days  9"l  I  palliated  patriotically  the  over- 
breezy    nonchalance    of    my    countryman    and 


Samuel  Rawson  Gardiner  181 

thought  I  had  got  at  the  bottom  of  the  joke,  but 
that  evening  at  a  little  tea  I  was  undeceived. 
A  small  company  were  present  of  men  and 
women,  talk  flowed  easily  and  when  it  came  my 
turn  I  told  the  story  of  the  Yankee  and  the 
scarabseus  which  I  had  heard  that  day.  As  I 
brought  out  with  emphasis  the  "  all-firedest,  big- 
gest bug"  I  noticed  that  a  frost  fell  on  the 
mirth,  silence  reigned  for  a  moment  interrupted 
only  by  gasps  from  the  ladies.  What  im- 
propriety had  I  committed?  Presently  a  little 
man  behind  the  coffee-urn  at  the  far  end  of  the 
table,  whom  I  had  heard  was  a  bit  of  a  scientist, 
piped  up :  "  Perhaps  the  Professor  does  n't  know 
that  in  England,  when  we  talk  about  bugs,  we 
mean  that  cimex  which  makes  intolerable  even 
the  most  comfortable  bed."  At  last  I  had  Dr. 
Garnett's  story  in  its  full  force. 

When  I  explained  to  Dr.  Garnett  my  errand, 
an  elaborate  investigation  of  an  historic  figure, 
said  he :  "  You  must  know  Samuel  Rawson 
Gardiner,  the  best  living  authority  for  the  period 
of  the  English  Civil  War.  Now  Dr.  Gardiner 
is  peculiar.  His  great  history  of  that  period  as 
yet  takes  in  nothing  later  than  1642.  Up  to 
that  date  he  will  have  all  the  information  and 
help  you  generously.  Of  the  time  beyond  that 
date  he  will  have  nothing  to  say,  be  mute  as  a 
dumb  man.  He  has  not  finished  his  investiga- 
tions and  has  a  morbid  caution  about  making 
any  suggestion  based  on  incomplete  data."     A 


182  The  Last  Leaf 

day  or  two  afterward  I  was  in  the  Public  Record 
Office  in  Fetter  Lane,  the  roomy  fire-proof  struc- 
ture which  holds  the  archives  of  England.  You 
sit  in  the  Search  Room,  a  most  interesting  place. 
Rolls  and  dusty  tomes  lie  heaped  about  you,  the 
attendants  go  back  and  forth  with  long  strips  of 
parchment  knotted  together  by  thongs,  hanging 
down  to  the  floor  before  and  behind,  written  over 
by  the  fingers  of  scribes  in  the  mediaeval  days 
and  sometimes  in  the  Dark  Ages.  The  past  be- 
comes very  real  to  you  as  you  scan  Domes  Day 
Book  which  once  was  constantly  under  the  eye 
of  William  the  Conqueror,  or  the  documents  of 
kings  who  reigned  before  the  Plantagenets.  As 
I  sat  busy  with  some  original  letters  of  Henry 
Vane,  written  by  him  when  a  boy  in  Germany 
in  the  heart  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  a  vigor- 
ous brown-haired  man  came  up  to  me  with  a 
pleasant  smile  and  introduced  himself  as  Samuel 
Rawson  Gardiner.  Dr.  Garnett  had  told  him 
about  me  and  about  my  especial  quest,  and  with 
rare  kindness,  he  offered  to  give  me  hints.  It  was 
for  me  a  fortunate  encounter,  for  no  other  man 
knew,  as  Gardiner  did,  the  ground  I  desired  to 
cover.  He  put  into  my  hands  old  books,  unprinted 
diaries,  scraps  of  paper  inscribed  by  great 
figures  in  historic  moments,  the  solid  sources, 
and  also  the  waifs  and  strays  from  which  proper 
history  must  be  built  up.  He  would  look  in 
upon  me  time  after  time  in  the  Search  Room;  in 
the  Reading  Room  of  the  British  Museum  we  sat 


Samuel  Rawson  Gardiner  183 

side  by  side  under  the  great  dome.  We  were 
working  in  the  same  field  and  the  experienced 
master  passed  over  to  the  neophyte  the  yellow 
papers  and  mildewed  volumes  in  which  he  was 
digging,  with  suggestions  as  to  how  I  might  get 
out  of  the  chaff  the  wheat  that  I  wanted.  He 
invited  me  to  his  home  at  Bromley  in  Kent, 
where  he  allowed  me  to  read  the  proofs  of  the 
volume  in  his  own  great  series  which  was  just 
then  in  press.  It  related  to  matters  that  were 
vital  to  my  purpose  and  I  had  the  rare  pleasure 
of  reading  a  masterly  work  and  seeing  how 
the  workman  built,  inserting  into  his  draft  count- 
less marginal  emendations,  the  application  of 
sober  second  thought  to  the  original  conception. 
I  spent  the  best  part  of  the  night  in  review  and 
it  was  for  me  a  training  well  worth  the  sacrifice 
of  sleep.  In  the  pleasant  July  afternoon  we  sat 
down  to  tea  in  the  little  shaded  garden  where 
I  met  the  son  and  daughter  of  my  host  and  also 
Mrs.  Gardiner,  an  accomplished  writer  and  his 
associate  in  his  labours.  The  interval  between 
tea  and  dinner  we  filled  up  with  a  long  walk 
over  the  fields  of  Kent  during  which  appeared 
the  social  side  of  the  man.  He  told  me  with 
modesty  that  he  was  descended  from  Cromwell 
through  Ireton,  and  the  vigour  of  his  stride,  with 
which  I  found  it  sometimes  hard  to  keep  up, 
made  it  plain  that  he  was  of  stalwart  stock  and 
might  have  marched  with  the  Ironsides.  A  day 
or  two  later  he  bade  me  good-bye;  he  and  his 


184  The  Last  Leaf 

wife  departing  for  'the  continent  for  a  long 
bicycle  tour.  The  indefatigable  scholar  was  no 
less  capable  in  the  fields  and  on  the  high  road 
than  in  alcoves  and  the  Search  Room. 

Lecky  was  not  in  England  at  the  time  of  my 
visit  and  I  can  only  claim  to  have  had  with 
him  an  epistolary  acquaintance.  To  some  ex- 
tent I  have  worked  on  the  same  themes  with 
him,  and  preserve  among  my  treasures  certain 
letters  in  which  he  made  me  feel  that  he  re- 
garded my  accomplishment  as  not  unworthy. 
Sir  Charles  Dilke  and  the  Bishop  of  Oxford, 
William  Stubbs,  author  of  the  great  Constitu- 
tional History,  I  also  never  met,  but  I  have 
letters  from  them  which  I  keep  with  those  of 
Lecky  as  things  which  my  children  will  prize. 
With  Edward  A.  Freeman,  however,  I  came  into 
cordial  relations,  a  character  well  worthy  of  a 
sketch.  He  once  came  to  America  where  with 
his  fine  English  distinction  behind  him  he  met 
a  good  reception.  He  deported  himself  after  the 
fashion  of  many  another  great  Englishman, 
somewhat  clumsily.  At  St.  Louis  he  amusingly 
misapprehended  conditions.  Remembering  the 
origin  of  the  city  he  took  it  for  granted  that 
the  audience  which  greeted  him  was  for  the 
most  part  of  French  descent,  whereas  probably 
not  a  dozen  persons  present  had  a  trace  of 
French  blood  in  their  veins.  Because  back- 
woodsmen a  few  generations  before  had  pos- 
sessed that  region  he  took  it  for  granted  that 


Edward  A..  Freeman  185 

we  were  backwoodsmen  still.     He  addressed  us 
under  these  misconceptions,  the  result  being  a 
"talking  down"  to  a  company  of  supposedly 
Latin  extraction  and  quite  illiterate.     The  fact 
was  that  the  crowd,  Anglo-Saxon  with  a  strong 
infusion  of  German,  was  made  up  of  people  of 
high  intelligence,  the  best  whom  the  city  could 
furnish,  a  city  at  the  time  noted  for  its  interest 
in   philosophical   pursuits   and   the   home   of  a 
highly  educated  class.     Freeman's  well-meant  re- 
marks  would   have   seemed   elementary    to   an 
audience  of  school-children.      The  address  was 
quite  inadequate  and  the  unfortunate  visitor  had 
a  rather  cool  reception.     Freeman  was  only  one 
of   many   in   all   this.     The   astronomer   R.    A. 
Proctor   came    to    similar   grief   for   a   similar 
gauOherie,  and  even  so  famous  a  man  as  Lord 
Kelvin   suffered  in   like  manner.     I  have  been 
told  that  at  Yale  University  when  addressing  a 
college  audience  zealous  for  their  own  institu- 
tion, he  stumbled  badly  on  the  threshold  by  en- 
larging on  the  great  privilege  he  was  enjoying 
in  speaking  to  the  students  of  Cornell,  proceed- 
ing blandly  under  the  conviction  that  he  was  at 
Ithaca  instead  of  under  the  elms  of  New  Haven. 
But  this  clumsiness  in  Freeman  and  in  others 
was  only  a  surface  blemish.     He  was  a  great 
writer  treating  with  profound  learning  the  story 
of  Greece  and  Rome  and  South-western  Europe 
in  general,  and  illuminating  as  probably  no  other 
man  has  done  the  distant  Saxon  and  early  Nor- 


186  The  Last  Leaf 

man  dimnesses  that  lie  in  the  background  of 
our  own  past.  I  held  him  in  thorough  respect 
and  when,  following  an  article  I  had  prepared 
in  London  for  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  I  received 
a  polite  note  from  him  inviting  me  to  come  to 
see  him  at  Somerleaze  near  Wells,  I  was  much 
rejoiced.  I  went  thither,  passing  through  the 
beautiful  green  heart  of  England.  In  Wiltshire 
from  the  car-window  I  caught  sight  of  a  distant 
down  on  which,  the  substratum  of  chalk  show- 
ing through  the  turf  skilfully  cut  away,  ap- 
peared the  figure  of  a  gigantic  white  horse,  the 
memorial  of  an  old  Saxon  battle ;  thence  passing 
near  Glastonbury  and  skirting  the  haunts  of 
ancient  Druids  in  the  Mendip  Hills,  I  was  attuned 
for  a  meeting  with  a  scholar  who  more  than  any 
other  man  of  the  time  had  aroused  interest  in 
the  old  life  of  England.  I  alighted  at  Wells 
where  a  trap  was  waiting,  and  drove  between 
hedgerows  for  two  miles  to  the  secluded  man- 
sion. It  lay  back  from  the  road,  a  roomy 
manor  house  thickly  surrounded  by  groves  and 
gardens.  I  was  put  at  ease  at  once  by  the 
friendly  welcome  of  Mrs.  Freeman,  a  charming 
hostess  who  met  me  at  the  door.  Freeman  soon 
entered,  a  veteran  of  sixty,  his  florid  English 
face  set  off  by  a  long  beard,  and  hair  rather 
dishevelled,  tawny,  and  streaked  with  gray. 
Like  Gardiner  he  was  of  vigorous  mould  and 
we  presently  strode  off  together  through  the 
lanes  of  the  estate  with  the  sweet  landscape  all 


.At  Somerleaze  187 

about  us.  His  talk  was  animated  and  related 
for  the  most  part  to  the  objects  which  we 
passed  and  the  points  that  came  into  view  on 
the  more  distant  hills.  It  was  rather  the  talk 
of  a  local  antiquary  than  of  a  historian  in  a 
comprehensive  sense,  though  now  and  then  a 
quickly  uttered  phrase  linked  a  trifling  detail 
with  the  great  world  movement;  the  spirit  was 
most  kindly.  Returning  to  the  house  he  stooped 
to  the  ground  and  picked  up  a  handsome  pea- 
cock's feather  which  he  gave  with  a  bow  as  a 
souvenir  of  the  walk.  At  dinner  we  met  Miss 
Freeman,  an  accomplished  daughter.  There  was 
only  one  guest  besides  myself,  a  man  whom  I 
felt  it  was  good  fortune  to  meet.  It  was  the 
Rev.  William  Hunt,  since  that  time  well  known 
as  a  large  contributor  to  Leslie  Stephen's  great 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  President  of 
the  English  Historical  Society,  and  author  of 
many  valuable  works.  It  so  happened  that  a 
few  weeks  before,  my  Life  of  Samuel  Adams  had 
come  under  his  notice  and  gained  his  approval, 
which  he  had  expressed  in  a  cordial  fashion  in 
the  Saturday  Review  by  an  article  which  had 
caused  me  much  satisfaction.  An  evening  fol- 
lowed full  of  interesting  things.  Miss  Freeman 
played  the  piano  for  us  with  much  skill,  and 
then  came  a  most  animated  talk  which,  though 
genial,  was  critically  pungent.  The  United 
States  was  often  sharply  attacked  and  I  was 
put  to  all  my  resources  to  parry  the  prods  that 


1 88  The  Last  Leaf 

were  directed  at  our  weak  places.      I  did  not 
escape  some  personal  banter.     Feeling  that  I  was 
in  a  congenial  atmosphere  I   announced  with 
warmth  my  persistent  love  for  England,  though 
my  stock  had  been  fixed  in  America  since  1635. 
I  spoke  of  a  cherished  tradition  of  my  family. 
The  chronicler,  Florence  of  Worcester,  describes 
an  ancient  battle  in  the  year  of  1016  between 
Edmond  Ironside  and  the  Danes.      The  battle 
was  close  and  the  Danes  at  one  point  had  taken 
captive  a  Saxon  champion  who  looked  very  much 
like  the  king.    By  cutting  off  his  head  and  holding 
it  up  before  the  Saxon  army  they  well-nigh  pro- 
duced a  panic,  for  the  Saxons  believed  that  their 
king  was  slain,  and  Edmond  had  a  lively  quarter 
of  an  hour  in  correcting  the  error  and  restoring 
order.     He  finally  did  so  and  won  victory  at 
last.     The  chronicler  gave  the  name  of  the  Saxon 
who    thus    suffered    untimely    decapitation    as 
Hosmer.     I  told  the  story  and  Freeman  at  once 
insisted  that  it  should  be  confirmed.     He  sent 
his  daughter  to  the  library,  who  returned  bear- 
ing  a   huge  tome   containing   the  chronicle  of 
Florence  of  Worcester.    Freeman  turned  at  once 
to  the  date,  1016,  and  there  was  the  passage  in 
the  quaint  mediaeval  Latin.      It  was  indeed  a 
Hosmer  who  unwittingly  had  so  nearly  brought 
Edmond  Ironside  to  grief.     "Was  I  descended 
from  the  man?  "  queried  Freeman.     Quite  proud 
that  my  story  had  been  substantiated  and  per- 
haps a  bit  vainglorious  over  the  fact  that  a  man 


The  Cathedral  of  Wells  189 

of  my  name  had  looked  like  a  king,  I  was  not 
slow  in  saying  that  I  probably  was,  that  my 
line  for  six  hundred  years  after  that  date,  honest 
yeomen,  had  lived  near  the  spot,  in  the  fields  of 
Kent.  Freeman  assented  to  the  probability,  but 
it  was  suggested  by  others  present  that  there 
was  a  further  tradition.  The  Hosmer  of  1016 
had  lost  his  head,  the  Hosmers  since  that  day  had 
been  constantly  losing  theirs,  in  fact,  there  had 
been  no  man  of  that  name  since  that  time 
in  England  who  had  any  head  worth  speaking 
of,  indeed  they  were  said  to  be  born  without 
heads.  Had  this  curious  heredity  been  trans- 
mitted to  the  American  line?  I  was  forced  to 
admit  with  confusion  that  I  could  cite  no  cir- 
cumstances to  rebut  the  suspicion,  but  all  was 
good-natured  though  pungent,  and  when  we 
broke  up  I  retired  to  the  guest  chamber  in  a 
pleasant  excitement.  Freeman,  who  conducted 
me  himself,  brought  the  guest-book,  calling  my 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  chamber  had 
shortly  before  been  occupied  by  Gladstone.  The 
next  morning  we  drove  to  Wells  where,  under 
the  guidance  of  Freeman  and  Mr.  Hunt,  I  studied 
for  some  hours  the  beautiful  cathedral.  It  is  not 
so  large  as  many  cathedrals,  but  few  of  them 
are  more  interesting.  The  front  is  finely  im- 
pressive; a  curious,  inverted  arch  in  the  choir 
which  descends  from  the  ceiling  to  meet  an  arch 
rising  from  the  floor  at  a  point  midway  between 
the   roof   and   pavement   is   a   unique   thing   in 


190  TKe  Last  Leaf 

architecture,  a  master-stroke  of  the  mediaeval 
builder  who  solved  a  problem  of  construction 
and  at  the  same  time  produced  a  thing  of  beauty. 
I  remember,  too,  in-  a  chapel,  an  example  of  a 
central  column  rising  like  a  slender  stem  of  a 
lily  and  foliating  at  the  top  into  a  graceful 
tracery,  springing  from  the  columns  which  sur- 
round and  enclose  the  space.  All  this  is  ela- 
borated with  exquisite  detail  in  the  white  stone. 
My  guides,  who  were  full  of  feeling  for  the 
architectural  perfection,  knew  well  the  story  of 
the  builders  and  the  interesting  events  with 
which  through  the  centuries  a  masterpiece  had 
been  associated.  It  was  a  charming  visit  closed, 
appropriately,  by  this  inspection  under  Free- 
man's guidance,  of  the  cathedral  of  Wells. 

Goldwin  Smith  was  a  cosmopolite;  a  citizen 
as  much  of  Canada  and  the  United  States  as  of 
England;  a  man  indeed  who  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  call  himself  a  citizen  of  the  world. 
But  in  England  he  was  born  and  bred  and  be- 
gan his  career;  under  the  Union  Jack  he  died, 
and  he  may  rightly  be  classed  as  an  English 
historian.  My  acquaintance  with  Goldwin  Smith 
began  a  quarter  of  a  century  back,,  in  the  inter- 
change of  notes  and  books.  I  was  interested  in 
the  same  fields  which  he  had  illustrated.  I 
looked  upon  him  as  more  than  any  other  writer, 
perhaps,  my  master.  I  was  in  love  with  his 
spirit  from  the  first  and  thought  that  no  other 
man   had  considered  so   well   topics  connected 


Gold-win  SmitH  191 

with  the  unity  of  English-speaking  men  in  a 
broad  bond  of  brotherhood.  I  did  not  set  eyes 
on  him  until  1903,  being  for  that  year  President 
of  the  American  Library  Association  which  was 
to  meet  at  Niagara  Falls.  I  invited  Goldwin 
Smith  to  give  the  principal  address.  The  li- 
brarians of  Canada,  as  well  as  the  United  States, 
were  to  assemble  on  the  frontier  between  the 
two  countries,  and  it  seemed  desirable  that  a 
man  standing  under  two  flags  should  be  spokes- 
man and  this  character  fitted  Goldwin  Smith 
precisely.  But  that  year  he  became  eighty  years 
old.  In  the  spring  he  was  ill  and  did  not  dare 
to  undertake  in  June  an  elaborate  address. 
When  we  assembled  at  Niagara  Falls,  however, 
I  found  him  there.  He  had  come  from  Toronto 
to  show  his  good-will  and  he  spoke  several  times 
in  our  meetings;  deliverances  which,  while 
neither  long  nor  formal,  were  well  worth  hearing. 
He  was  a  stately  presence,  tall,  slender,  and  erect 
even  at  eighty,  with  a  commanding  face  and 
head  which  had  every  trait  of  dignity.  I  had 
several  opportunities  for  private  talk  and  it  ap- 
peared that  his  natural  force  was  by  no  means 
abated.  It  would  no  doubt  be  more  just  to  class 
him  as  a  critic  in  politics,  literature,  and  philo- 
sophy rather  than  an  historian,  but  in  the  latter 
capacity,  too,  his  service  was  great.  His  talk 
was  fluent,  incisive,  and  put  forward  without 
reference  to  what  might  be  the  prejudices  or 
indeed  the  well-based  principles  of  his  listeners. 


192  THe  Last  Leaf 

He  lashed  bitterly  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  for  refusing  through  fear  of  Irish  disap- 
proval to  do  honour  to  John  Bright.  His  tongue 
was  a  sword  and  cut  sharply,  and  while  he  won 
respect  always,  often  excited  opposition  and 
sometimes  hatred.  Napoleon  in  particular  was 
a  bete  noire,  to  whom  he  denied  even  the  pos- 
session of  military  genius.  His  courage  was 
serene  and  he  was  quite  indifferent  as  to  whether 
he  were  hissed  or  applauded.  He  moved  in  a 
lofty  atmosphere  and  the  praise  and  blame  of 
men  counted  for  little  with  him,  as  on  his  high 
plane  he  discussed  and  judged.  But  it  was  im- 
possible to  entertain  for  Goldwin  Smith  any 
other  feeling  than  profound  respect,  his  accom- 
plishments were  vast,  his  memory  unfailing,  his 
ideals  the  highest,  his  sense  of  justice  the  keen- 
est. His  was  a  nature  perhaps  to  evoke  venera- 
tion rather  than  affection,  and  yet  to  men  worthy 
of  it  he  could  be  heartily  cordial  and  friendly. 
The  inscription  on  the  stone  erected  to  his 
memory  at  Cornell  University  is  "  Above  all  na- 
tions is  humanity."  In  his  thought  any  limita- 
tion of  the  sympathies  within  the  comparatively 
narrow  bounds  of  one  country  was  a  vice  rather 
than  a  virtue,  and  no  nation  was  worthy  to  en- 
dure which  did  not  stand  for  the  good  of  the 
world  at  large;  into  love  for  all  humanity  nar- 
rower affections  should  emerge.  He  invited  me 
to  spend  some  days  at  the  Grange  at  Toronto 
in  his  beautiful  home,  but  circumstances  made 


James  Bryce  193 

it  impossible.  I  am  glad  to  have  seen  Goldwin 
Smith  at  Niagara;  that  majestic  environment 
befitted  the  subduing  stateliness  of  his  presence, 
his  intellect,  power,  and  elevation  of  view.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  exalted  men  I  have  ever 
known. 

Of  my  friend  Bishop  Phillips  Brooks,  I  hope 
to  say  something  by-and-by.  I  only  mention 
now  that  when  I  asked  him  in  1886  for  a  letter 
or  two  to  friends  in  England,  whither  I  was 
going  to  collect  material  for  a  life  of  the  colo- 
nial governor,  he  heartily  said,  "  I  will  give 
you  a  letter  to  the  best  Englishman  I  know,  and 
that  is  James  Bryce." 

Arriving  one  July  day  in  London,  I  posted 
my  letter  and  received  at  once  an  invitation  from 
Mr.  Bryce  to  call  upon  him  in  Downing  Street, 
where,  as  Under  Secretary  of  State,  he  then  made 
his  official  home. 

Mark  Twain's  tears  over  the  grave  of  Adam, 
a  relative  buried  in  a  strange  land,  all  will  re- 
call. On  a  basis  as  good  perhaps,  I  walked 
through  Downing  Street  with  a  certain  sense  of 
proprietorship,  for  did  it  not  bear  the  name  and 
had  it  not  been  the  home  of  my  brother  in  the 
pleasant  Harvard  bond,  Sir  George  Downing,  of 
the  class  of  1642?  In  the  ante-room  with  its 
upholstery  of  dark-green  leather  I  mused  for 
a  few  minutes  alone,  over  diplomatic  conferences 
of  which  it  had  probably  been  the  scene,  but  Mr. 
Bryce  quickly  entered,  slight  and  sinewy,  in  his 


194  The  Last  Leaf 

best  years,  kindly,  courteous  to  the  man  sent  by 
a  friend  whom  he  held  among  the  closest.  Bryce 
at  that  time  was  on  the  threshold  of  his  fame. 
He  had  written  The  Holy  Roman  Empire  which 
I  knew  well.  He  had  been  Regius  Professor  at 
Oxford,  whose  shades  he  had  not  long  before 
forsaken  for  politics.  That  he  had  a  special  in- 
terest in  and  knowledge  of  America,  the  world 
did  not  know.  He  apologised  for  turning  me 
off  briefly  then,  but  "  Come  to  dinner,"  said  he, 
"  at  my  house  to-night  in  Bryanstone  Square." 
I  was  prompt  to  keep  the  appointment.  A 
drizzle  filtered  through  the  night  as  the  cab 
arrived  at  the  door,  but  there  was  a  cheery  light 
in  the  windows  and  a  warm  welcome  to  the  en- 
tering guest.  There  were  three  or  four  besides 
myself;  a  young  officer  just  home  from  the  cam- 
paign in  the  Soudan,  Dr.  Richter  the  authority 
in  music  and  art,  and  the  brother  and  sister  of 
the  host.  I  felt  it  a  high  distinction  that  I 
handed  out  to  dinner  the  stately  lady,  the  mother 
of  my  host.  The  conversation  was  general.  Bits 
of  African  experience  from  the  young  soldier, 
glimpses  into  Richter's  special  fields,  and  a  con- 
tribution or  two  from  the  Mississippi  Valley, 
from  me.  In  the  talk  that  followed  the  dinner 
Mr.  Bryce  showed  himself  at  home  in  German 
as  much  as  in  English,  but  what  surprised  me 
most  was  his  puzzling  curiosity  about  minutiae 
of  our  own  politics.  Why  did  the  Mayor  of 
Oshkosh  on  such  and  such  dates  veto  the  pro- 


THe  House  of  Commons  195 

positions  of  the  aldermen  as  to  the  gas  supply? 
And  why  did  the  supervisors  of  Pike  County, 
Missouri,  pass  such  and  such  ordinances  as  re- 
gards the  keeping  of  dogs?  These,  or  similar 
questions  were  fired  at  me  rapidly,  uttered  with 
a  keen  attention  as  to  my  reply.  I  was  quite 
confused  and  lame  on  what  was  supposedly  my 
own  ground.  How  queer,  I  thought,  was  the 
interest  and  the  knowledge  of  this  stranger. 
But  in  a  few  months  I  felt  better.  The  Ameri- 
can Commonwealth  appeared,  revealing  Bryce  as 
a  man  who  had  set  foot  in  almost  our  every  State 
and  Territory,  and  who  had  an  intimacy  with 
America  such  as  no  American  even  possessed. 

I  am  speaking  here  of  historians,  but  may 
appropriately  give  a  little  space  to  an  account 
of  that  wonderful  acre  or  two  of  ground  at  West- 
minster, where  for  so  many  centuries  the  history 
of  the  English-speaking  race  has  been  to  such 
an  extent  focused. 

In  looking  up  Young  Sir  Henry  Vane,  it 
seemed  fitting  to  have  some  knowledge  of  Par- 
liament, and  I  welcomed  the  chance  when,  on 
the  19th  of  August,  1886,  Parliament  convened. 
It  was  a  time  of  agitation.  At  the  election  just 
previous  the  Liberals,  with  Gladstone  at  the  head 
of  the  Cabinet,  had  undergone  defeat  and  the 
Conservatives  had  come  in  with  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  The 
first  night  was  sure  to  be  full  of  turmoil  and 
excitement.     Through  Mr,  Bryce's  good  offices  I 


196  TKe  Last  Leaf 

had  a  seat  in  the  Strangers'  Gallery.  The  stu- 
dent of  history  must  always  tread  the  precincts 
of  Westminster  with  awe.  There  attached  to 
the  Abbey  is  the  Chapter  House.  The  central 
column  divides  overhead  into  the  groins  that 
form  the  arched  ceiling,  the  stones  at  its  base 
still  bearing  a  stain  from  the  rubbing  elbows 
of  mediaeval  legislators,  the  floor  worn  by  their 
hurrying  feet,  for  from  the  time  of  Edward  I. 
the  Chapter  House  remained  for  centuries 
the  legislative  meeting-place.  The  old  St. 
Stephen's  Chapel  to  which  Parliament  at  length 
removed  was  burned  some  eighty  years  since, 
but  Westminster  Hall,  its  attachment — the  great 
hall  of  William  Rufus,  escaped  and  the  new 
buildings  of  Parliament  stand  on  the  site  of  its 
former  home.  The  present  House  of  Commons 
occupies  the  ground  of  the  old  Chapel  and  in 
size  and  arrangement  differs  little  from  it.  The 
Hall  is  small.  The  seven  hundred  members 
seated  on  the  benches  which  slope  up  from  the 
centre,  crowd  the  floor  space,  while  the  galleries 
for  the  press  at  one  end,  for  strangers  at  the  other, 
and  for  the  use  of  the  Lords  and  the  Diplomatic 
corps  at  the  sides  give  only  meagre  accommoda- 
tion. I  passed  into  the  building  at  nightfall, 
getting  soul-stirring  glimpses  into  the  great  area 
of  Westminster  Hall,  in  which  burned  only  one 
far-away  light.  Its  grandeur  was  more  impres- 
sive in  the  dimness  than  in  the  glare.  The  lofty 
associations  of  the  spot,  coronations  of  kings, 


Sir  Henry  Norman  197 

the  reverberations  of  eloquence,  the  illustrious 
victims  that  had  gone  out  from  its  tribunal  to 
the  scaffold  thronged  in  my  thought  as  I  mo- 
mentarily paused.  But  time  pressed  and  I 
passed  on  to  the  central  Hall  where  I  stood  in 
a  jostling  crowd,  absorbed  in  the  present  with 
little  thought  of  the  fine  frescoes  that  lined  the 
walls  or  of  the  history  that  had  been  made  in 
that  environment.  I  was  to  send  in  my  card 
to  Mr.  Bryce  and  while  I  stood  puzzled  as  to 
what  course  to  take,  a  good  friend  came  to  my 
side  in  the  person  of  Sir  Henry  Norman.  He 
had  not  then  received  his  knightly  title  but  was 
simply  assistant  to  W.  T.  Stead  on  the  Pall  Mall 
Gazette,  pushing  his  way,  but  already  marked  for 
a  distinguished  and  eccentric  career.  He  came 
to  America  as  a  youth  and  entered  the  Harvard 
Theological  School.  Inverting  his  pyramid,  after 
beginning  with  the  cone,  he  put  in  the  base,  tak- 
ing up  the  work  of  undergraduate,  and  studying 
for  an  A.B.  At  Harvard  he  is  best  remembered 
as  Creon  in  the  (Edipus  Tyrannus,  where 
his  handsome  face  and  figure  and  mellifluous 
Greek  won  much  admiration.  Soon  after,  he 
cast  to  the  winds  both  his  Greek  and  theology 
and  was  in  London  fighting  his  way  in  the 
Press.  Since  then  he  has  become  famous  for 
Oriental  travel  and  observation,  in  which  field 
he  is  an  authority,  and  also  as  a  member  of 
Parliament.  A  friendship  with  him  had  been 
conciliated  for  me  by  a  good  letter  from  Edwin 


198  THe  Last  Leaf 

D.  Mead,  and  I  was  glad  to  have  him  by  my 
side  that  night.  Through  his  help  I  soon  was 
in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Bryce  and  under  his  guid- 
ance found  the  way  to  my  appointed  seat.  The 
House  was  in  an  uproar  as  I  entered  and  from 
my  point  of  vantage  I  looked  down  upon  the 
scene,  undignified,  but  full  of  most  virile  life. 
At  the  opposite  end  of  the  Hall  sat  Speaker 
Peel,  in  gown  and  wig,  his  sonorous  cries  of 
"  Order !  order !  "  availing  little  it  seemed,  to 
quiet  the  assembly.  In  the  centre  of  the  Cham- 
ber stood  the  famous  table,  the  mace  reposing 
at  the  end,  the  symbol  that  the  House  was  in 
formal  session.  On  one  side  sat  the  members 
of  the  new  Cabinet,  the  foremost  and  most  in- 
teresting figure,  Lord  Randolph  Churchill.  Op- 
posite to  them  across  the  width  of  the  table  were 
the  leaders  of  the  opposition,  Gladstone  at  the 
fore.  The  benches  were  densely  crowded  with 
members.  Under  my  feet  where  I  could  not  see 
them  were  the  Irish  members,  not  visible  but 
noisily  audible..  Many  men  of  note  were  in 
their  seats  that  night.  A  powerful  voice  was 
ringing  through  the  Chamber  as  I  took  my  seat, 
which  I  soon  found  was  that  of  Bradlaugh.  His 
utterance  was  a  sustained  declamation.  But 
there  were  ejaculations,  sometimes  mere  hoots 
and  cat-calls,  sometimes  crisply-shouted  sen- 
tences rose  into  the  air.  "  I  belong  to  a  society 
for  the  abolition  of  the  House  of  Lords,"  came 
thundering  up.     It  was  from  Sir  Wilfred  Law- 


Lord  Randolph  CH\ircHill  199 

son,  the  radical  from  Carlisle,  whose  statue  now 
stands  on  the  Thames  Embankment.  Lord  Ran- 
dolph Churchill  made  that  night  what  I  suppose 
was  the  great  speech  of  his  life,  for  some  two 
hours  facing  the  Irish  members  waging  a  forensic 
battle,  memorable  for  even  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. From  my  perch  I  looked  directly  into 
his  face  at  a  distance  of  not  many  feet  as  he 
confronted  the  Irish  crowd.  Rather  short  of 
stature,  he  was  a  compact  figure,  and  his  face 
had  in  it  combative  energy  as  the  marked  char- 
acteristic. He  outlined  the  policy  of  the  new 
government  with  serene  indifference  to  the 
stormy  disapproval  which  almost  every  sentence 
evoked.  When  the  outcry  became  deafening,  he 
paused  with  a  grim  smile  on  his  bull-dog  face 
until  the  interruption  wore  itself  out.  "  This 
disturbance  makes  no  difference  to  me,"  he  would 
quietly  say,  "  I  am  only  sorry  to  have  the  time 
of  the  House  wasted  in  such  unreasonable  fash- 
ion." Then  would  come  another  prod  and  a  new 
chorus  of  howls  rolling  thunderously  from  the 
cavern  under  my  feet.  It  is  not  in  line  with 
my  present  plan  to  describe  this  speech;  that 
may  be  found  in  Hansard  under  the  date.  I 
touch  only  on  the  outside  manner  as  he  fought 
his  fight.  It  was  a  fine  example  of  cool,  imper- 
turbable, unshrinking  assault,  and  I  thought 
that  in  some  such  way  his  ancestor,  the  great 
Duke  of  Marlboro,  might  have  ruled  the  hour  at 
Blenheim  and  Malplaquet.     Many  years  after  it 


200  THe  Last  Leaf 

fell  to  me  to  introduce  to  an  audience  his  son 
Winston  Churchill  who,  when  his  father  was 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  was  a  schoolboy  at 
Harrow.  I  took  occasion  to  describe  briefly  the 
battle  I  had  seen  his  father  wage  at  West- 
minster. It  pleased  WTinston  Churchill  then  fresh 
from  the  fields  of  South  Africa.  "  That  was  in- 
deed a  great  speech  of  my  father's,"  he  said.  Since 
then  the  son  has  developed  into  a  combatant 
probably  not  less  formidable  than  his  forebears. 

This  was  well  worth  while  for  me,  desiring 
to  see  the  Parliament  of  England  in  its  most 
interesting  moods,  but  something  came  later 
which  I  treasure  more.  While  the  conflict  pro- 
ceeded, in  his  place  near  the  mace  but  a  yard 
or  two  distant  from  the  conspicuous  figure  sat 
Gladstone.  I  had  seen  him  enter  the  House,  a 
massive  frame  dressed  in  a  dark  frock-coat  which 
hung  handsomely  upon  his  broad  shoulders,  with 
the  strong  head  and  face  above,  set  in  a  lion- 
like mane  of  disordered  hair.  He  sat  unmoved 
and  quiet  throughout  the  conflict  as  he  might 
have  done  at  a  ladies'  tea-party,  but  now  he  rose 
to  speak.  At  once  complete  silence  pervaded 
the  Chamber.  I  believe  I  have  never  seen  so 
impressive  an  exhibition  of  the  power  of  a  great 
personality.  Foes  as  well  as  friends  waited  al- 
most breathless  for  the  words  that  were  to  come. 
It  was  a  time  of  crisis.  He  had  just  met  de- 
feat.    What  could  the  discredited  leader  say? 

He  began  in  a  voice  scarcely  above  a  whisper, 


Gladstone  201 

though  in  the  silence  it  was  distinctly  audible, 
but  the  tones  strengthened  and  deepened  as  he 
proceeded.  His  audience  hung  upon  his  every 
word,  and  so  he  discoursed  for  half  an  hour. 
It  was  not  a  great  speech, — a  series  of  calm, 
unimpassioned  statements  in  which  clearness  of 
phrase  and  absolute  abstention  from  aggressive 
attack  upon  his  opponents  were  the  most  marked 
characteristics.  It  was  courteous  toward  friend 
and  foe,  and  foes  no  less  than  friends  received 
each  clear-cut  sentence  with  attention  most  re- 
spectful. I  was  a  bit  disappointed  not  to  see 
the  old  lion  aroused  and  in  his  grandeur.  But 
it  is  a  thing  to  prize  that  I  witnessed  a  mani- 
festation made  in  his  full  strength  and  in  the 
acme  of  his  dominance.  It  was  worth  while  to 
see  that  even  in  no  great  mood,  the  force  of 
his  leadership  was  recognised  and  reserve  power 
of  the  man  fully  felt.  Like  every  Achilles, 
Gladstone  was  held  by  the  heel  when  dipped.  One 
may  well  feel  that  he  came  short  as  a  theologian. 
The  scholars  slight  his  Homeric  disquisitions. 
Consistency  was  a  virtue  which  he  probably  too 
often  scouted,  but  his  high  purpose,  his  spotless- 
ness  of  spirit,  and  strong  control  of  men  no  one 
can  gainsay.  In  the  slang  of  the  street  of  that 
time  he  was  the  "  G.  O.  M.,- '  the  Grand  Old  Man 
as  well  to  those  who  fought  him  as  to  those  who 
loved  him.  An  impressive  incident  of  the  ses- 
sion occurred  in  the  address  of  the  "  Mover  of 
the  Queen's  Speech."     The  orator  in  brilliant 


202  THe  Last  Leaf 

court  attire,  a  suit  of  plum-coloured  velvet  with 
full  wig  and  small-clothes  which  seemed  almost 
the  only  bit  of  colour  in  the  soberly,  sometimes 
rather  shabbily,  dressed  assemblage,  a  costume 
which  through  long  tradition  attaches  to  the 
function  which  he  discharged,  prefaced  his  re- 
marks with  this  tribute:  "However  we  may 
differ  from  the  honourable  member  for  Mid- 
lothian, we  are  all  willing  to  admit  that  he  is 
the  most  illustrious  of  living  Englishmen."  In 
spite  of  the  general  bitterness  of  the  tumultuous 
controversy,  one  felt  that  there  lay  beneath  it 
all  a  certain  fine  magnanimity.  Both  Liberal 
and  Tory  believed  in  the  substantial  patriotism 
and  good  purpose  of  the  adversary  as  a  funda- 
mental concession  and  that  all  were  seeking  the 
best  welfare  of  England.  The  differences  re- 
garded only  the  expedients  which  wTere  proper 
for  the  moment.  One  could  see  that  foes  furious 
in  the  arena  might  at  the  same  time  be  closest 
personal  friends.  It  was  not  a  riddle  that  in 
the  tea-rooms  and  the  smoking-rooms  Greek  and 
Trojan  could  sit  together  in  friendly  tete-a-tete, 
or  that  such  incidents  could  occur  as  the  genial 
congratulations  extended  by  Gladstone  to  Joseph 
Chamberlain  over  the  fine  promise  of  his  son 
Austin  Chamberlain  making  his  debut  in  Par- 
liament ;  congratulations  extended  when  the  two 
statesmen  were  at  swords'  points, — a  friendly 
talk  as  it  were,  through  helmet  bars  when  the 
slash  was  at  the  sharpest. 


Parliament  of  England  203 

As  I  went  home  that  night,  through  the  streets 
of  London,  my  mind  and  heart  were  full.     My 
special  studies  at  the  moment  were  familiarising 
me  with  what  lay  behind  the  scene  wThich  I  had 
just   beheld.     In   similar   fashion   in   the   days 
of   Edward    I.    and    Simon    De    Montfort,    the 
Commons  of  England,  then  struggling  up,  had 
wrestled  in  the  narrow  Chapter  House.    And  so 
they  had  fought  in  the  Lancastrian  time;  and 
after  the  Tudor  incubus  had  been  lifted  off.     So 
under  the  Stuarts  had  the  wrangling  proceeded 
from  which  came  at  length  the  "  Petition   of 
Right."    Substituting  the  doublet  and  the  steeple 
hat  for  their  modern  equivalents,  the  spectacle  of 
the  Long  Parliament  must  have  been  very  similar. 
Speaker   Lenthall   no   doubt   shouted   "  Order ! 
Order ! "  as  did  his  succesor  Speaker  Peel,  while 
Pym,  Hampden,  Cromwell,  and  Vane  passionately 
inveighed   against   Prelacy    and   the   "  Man   of 
Blood,"  as  I  had  just  heard  the  Radicals  of  the 
Victorian  era  overwhelm  with  diatribe  the  ob- 
structors of  the  popular  will.    Then,  during  the 
subsoiling  which   the   land,  growing   arid   and 
worthless  through  mediaeval  blight,  underwent  in 
1832  and  after,  when  the  Reform  Bill  and  its  suc- 
cessors, like  deeply  penetrating  plows,  threw  to 
the  surface  much  that  was  unsightly,  yet  full  of 
potentialities  for  good,  the  spot  was  the  same.  The 
conditions  and  the  environment  looking  at  it  in 
the  large  were  not  widely  different,  the  ancient 
Anglo-Saxon  freedom  struggling  ever  for  its  foot- 


204  The  Last  Leaf 

hold  as  the  centuries  lapse,  now  precariously 
uncertain  as  Privilege  and  Prerogative  push 
hotly,  now  fixed  and  strong  in  great  moments 
of  triumph ;  and  the  end  is  not  yet.  In  the 
earlier  time  the  destinies  of  America  were  closely 
interlocked  with  England  and  came  up  no  less 
for  decision  in  the  great  arena  at  Westminster. 
The  destinies  of  the  two  peoples  are  scarcely  less 
interlocked  at  the  present  moment.  We  are 
gravitating  toward  closer  brotherhood,  and  the 
thoughtful  American  sees  reason  to  study  with 
the  deepest  interest  each  passage  of  arms  in  the 
ancient  memorable  arena. 

I  saw  in  Germany  in  1870,  usually  through 
the  good  offices  of  Bancroft,  our  minister,  the 
most  eminent  historians  of  that  day.  Giese- 
brecht  and  von  Raumur  were  no  longer  living, 
but  men  were  still  in  the  foreground  to  the  full 
as  illustrious.  Heidelberg  in  those  days  was 
relatively  a  more  conspicuous  university  than  at 
present.  Its  great  men  remain  to  it,  though 
the  process  of  absorption  was  beginning  which 
at  last  carried  the  more  distinguished  lights  to 
Berlin.  The  lovely  little  town,  whose  streets  for 
nearly  six  hundred  years  have  throbbed  with  the 
often  boisterous  life  of  the  student  population, 
is  at  its  best  in  the  spring  and  early  summer. 
The  Neckar  ripples  tumultuously  into  the  broad 
Rhine  plain,  from  which  towers  to  the  height  of 
two  thousand  feet  the  romantic  Odenwald.    From 


von  TreitscHKe  205 

some  ruin  of  ancient  watch-tower  or  cloister  on 
the  height,  entrancing  views  spread  out,  the  land- 
scape holding  the  venerable  towns  of  Worms 
and  Speyer,  each  with  its  cathedral  dominating 
the  clustered  dwellings,  while  the  lordly  Rhine 
pours  its  flood  northward— a  stream  of  gold 
when  in  the  late  afternoon  it  glows  in  the  sun- 
set. The  old  castle  stands  on  its  height,  more 
beautiful  in  its  decay,  with  ivy  clinging  about 
the  broken  arches,  and  the  towers  wrecked  by  the 
powder-bursts  of  ancient  wars,  than  it  could  ever 
have  been  when  unshaken. 

Among  the  professors  at  Heidelberg,  von 
Treitschke  was  one  of  the  most  eminent,  and  it 
was  my  privilege  one  day  to  hear  him  lecture 
on  a  theme  which  stirred  him — the  battle  of 
Leipsic,  the  great  Volkerschlacht  of  1813,  when 
Germany  cruelly  clipped  the  pinions  of  the 
Napoleonic  eagle.  The  hall  was  crowded  with 
young  men,  corps-studenten  being  especially 
numerous,  robust  youths  in  caps  and  badges, 
and  many  of  the  faces  were  patched  and  scarred 
from  duels  in  the  Hirsch-Gasse.  Von  Treitschke, 
a  dark,  energetic  figure,  was  received  with  great 
respect.  Deafness,  from  which  he  suffered, 
affected  somewhat  his  delivery.  He  told  the 
story  of  the  great  battle,  the  frantic  effort 
against  combined  Europe  of  the  crippled  French, 
the  defection  of  the  Saxons  in  the  midst  of  the 
fight,  the  final  driving  of  Napoleon  across  the 
Elster,  the  death  of  Poniatowski  and  the  retreat 


2o6  The  Last  Leaf 

to  France.  His  voice  was  a  deep,  sonorous 
monotone  and  every  syllable  was  caught  eagerly 
by  his  auditors.  They  and  the  speaker  were 
thoroughly  at  one  in  their  intense  German  feel- 
ing. It  was  a  celebration  of  triumph  of  the 
Fatherland.  The  significance  of  it  all  was  not 
apparent,  that  sunny  spring  morning,  but  we 
were  on  the  eve  of  a  catastrophe  which  appar- 
ently no  one  foreboded;  Metz,  Gravelotte,  and 
Sedan  were  only  a  few  months  away.  The  fire 
which  I  saw  burning  so  hot  in  the  souls  of  both 
speaker  and  hearers  was  part  of  the  conflagra- 
tion destined  to  consume  widely  and  thoroughly 
before  the  summer  closed. 

Ernst  Curtius  was  probably  the  most  dis- 
tinguished Hellenist  of  his  time.  He  had  studied 
the  Greeks  on  their  own  soil  and  gone  with  Ger- 
man thoroughness  into  their  literature,  history, 
and  art.  He  had  excellent  powers  of  present- 
ment, wrote  exhaustively  and  yet  attractively 
and  won  early  recognition.  He  was  selected  for 
the  post  of  tutor  to  the  Crown  Prince,  an  honour 
of  the  highest.  The  Crown  Prince,  afterwards 
Emperor  Frederick,  held  him  in  high  regard 
and  in  1870  his  position  in  the  world  of  scholars 
was  of  the  best.  I  had  the  honour  to  pay  him 
a  visit  in  his  home  one  pleasant  Sunday  after- 
noon in  company  with  Bancroft.  I  remember 
Bancroft's  crisp  German  enunciation  as  he  pre- 
sented me;  "  Ich  stelle  Ihnen  einen  Amerikaner 
vor,"  and  he  mentioned  my  name.     I  bowed  and 


Ernst  C\irtrus  207 

felt  my  hand  grasped  cordially  in  a  warm,  well- 
conditioned  palm,  while  a  round,  genial  face 
beamed  good-naturedly.  The  interview  was  in 
the  Professor's  handsome  garden,  his  accom- 
plished wife  and  daughters  were  of  the  party, 
and  I  remember  Mahcein  with  pretzels  on  a 
lawn  with  rose-bushes  close  beside  and  music 
coming  through  the  open  windows  of  the  house. 
The  hospitality  was  graceful,  there  was  no  pro- 
found talk  but  only  pleasant  chatter.  The 
daughters  were  glad  to  have  a  chance  to  try 
their  English  and  I  was  glad  for  the  moment 
to  slip  out  of  the  foreign  bond  and  disport  my- 
self for  their  benefit  in  my  vernacular,  but  the 
Professor  needed  no  practice.  His  English  was 
quite  adequate,  as,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Ger- 
man of  Bancroft  was  well  in  hand. 

"  What  other  university  people  would  you  like 
to  see?  "  said  Bancroft  to  me  one  day.  I  men- 
tioned von  Ranke,  Lepsius,  and  Mommsen  as 
men  whose  names  were  familiar,  whose  faces  I 
should  like  to  look  upon. 

"  Find  out  the  sprech-stunden  of  these  men," 
said  Bancroft  to  his  secretary,  and  presently  a 
slip  was  put  into  my  hand  containing  the  hours 
at  which  I  could  be  conveniently  received.  Fol- 
lowing the  direction,  I  was  one  day  admitted  to 
the  library  of  von  Ranke,  a  plain  apartment 
walled  by  books  from  floor  to  ceiling,  with  a 
desk  well-worn  by  days  and  nights  of  work.  As 
I  awaited  his  entrance  the  facts  of  his  career 


208  The  Last  Leaf 

were  vivid  in  my  mind.  He  was  a  man  of 
seventy-five  and  had  been  a  scholar  almost  from 
his  cradle.  He  was  known  to  me  particularly 
through  his  history  of  the  popes,  which  was  and 
perhaps  is  still  the  judicial  authority  with  re- 
gard to  the  line  of  pontiffs,  but  that  was  only 
one  book  among  many.  He  belonged  to  a  class 
of  which  Germany  has  been  prolific,  whose  con- 
sciences assault  them  if  they  let  their  pens  lie 
idle,  and  who  have  no  recourse  in  self-defence 
but  building  about  themselves  a  barricade  of 
books.  After  researches  in  various  fields,  von 
Ranke  now  was  undertaking  a  history  of  the 
world,  with  no  thought  apparently  of  a  probable 
touch  from  the  dart  of  death  in  the  near  future; 
and  he  did  indeed  live  until  nearly  ninety  and 
long  produced  a  volume  a  year. 

He  entered  presently  from  an  inner  room, 
rather  a  short,  well-rounded  figure  with  a  face 
marked  by  a  clear  eye  and  much  vivacity.  He 
conversed  well  in  English  and  was  curious  about 
American  education  and  offered,  rather  ludi- 
crously, I  remember,  to  exchange  the  publica- 
tions of  the  University  of  Berlin  with  those  of 
the  little  fresh-water  college  in  which  I  was  at 
that  time  a  young  teacher.  Could  the  scholar 
be  aiming  a  sly  sarcastic  hit  at  the  bareness  of 
our  educational  outposts  in  the  West?  But  no, 
his  frank  look  and  voice  showed  that  he  was 
unaware  of  the  real  conditions.  The  talk  was 
not  long,  there  was  a  hearty  expression  of  regard 


THeodor  Mommsen  209 

for  Mr.  Bancroft  who  was  fully  accepted  by  the 
German-learned  world  as  one  of  their  Gelehrten, 
trained  as  he  had  been  in  youth  in  their  schools, 
and  in  that  day  our  best-known  historian.  I 
bowed  myself  out  respectfully  from  the  presence 
of  the  little  man  and  sincerely  hope  that  the 
merit  of  his  great  history  is  in  no  way  abated 
because  I  took  a  half -hour  of  his  time. 

I  met  Lepsius,  the  great  Egyptian  scholar, 
one  afternoon  in  his  garden,  a  hale,  straight  man 
of  sixty  with  abundant  grey  hair  surmounting 
a  fine  forehead,  with  blue  eyes  full  of  penetra- 
tion behind  his  spectacles.  I  had  little  know- 
ledge of  the  subject  he  had  studied  so  profoundly 
and  almost  laughed  outright  when  his  pretty 
daughter  asked  me  if  I  had  read  her  father's 
translation  of  the  Boole  of  the  Dead.  Of  von 
Ranke's  themes  I  thought  I  knew  something  and 
was  more  at  ease  with  him,  as  with  Mommsen 
whom  I  met  about  the  same  time. 

Theodor  Mommsen,  more  than  any  other,  forty 
years  ago,  was  the  leading  historian  of  Germany. 
He  began  his  career  as  a  student  of  law,  in 
the  antiquities  of  which  he  became  thoroughly 
versed.  In  particular  Justinian  and  the  Roman 
authorities,  among  whom  he  stands  as  chief,  were 
the  objects  of  Mommsen's  research.  From  juris- 
prudence he  passed  to  the  study  of  general  his- 
tory, and  of  the  most  interesting  period  of  Rome 
he  absorbed  into  his  mind  all  the  lore  that  has 
survived.  This  he  digested  and  set  forth  in  a 
14 


210  THe  Last  Leaf 

monumental  work,  which,  translated  into  Eng- 
lish, has  been,  in  the  English-speaking  wrorld  of 
scholars  at  least,  as  familiar  as  household  words. 
At  a  still  later  time  he  was  an  active  striver 
in  the  political  agitations  of  his  day. 

I  sent  in  my  card  to  Mommsen  with  some 
trepidation  and  was  at  once  admitted.  I  found 
him  sitting  at  leisure  among  his  books  and  Ban- 
croft's introduction  brought  to  pass  for  me  a 
genial  welcome.  He  wTas  a  man  not  large  in 
frame  with  dark  eyes,  and  black  hair  streaked 
with  grey.  No  doubt  but  that  like  German 
scholars  in  general  he  could  talk  English,  but 
he  stuck  to  German  and  I  was  rather  glad  he 
did  so;  I  could  take  him  in  better  as  he  dis- 
coursed fluently  in  his  mother-tongue.  Momm- 
sen was  a  man  of  sharp  corners  who  often  in 
his  political  career  brought  grief  to  adversaries 
who  tried  to  handle  him  without  gloves.  I  was 
fortunate  in  catching  him  in  a  softer  mood  and 
witnessed  an  amiability  with  which  he  was  not 
usually  credited.  His  little  daughters  were  in 
the  room,  pretty  children  with  whom  the  father 
played  with  evident  pride  and  joy,  interrupting 
the  conversation  to  caress  the  curly  pates,  and 
trotting  them  on  his  knee.  He  put  keen  ques- 
tions to  me  as  regards  America,  showing  that 
while  busy  with  Csesar  and  the  on-goings  of  the 
ancient  forum  he  had  been  wide  awake  also  to 
modern  happenings.  He  expressed  much  regard 
for  Bancroft  and  praised  Grant  for  selecting  as 


ScKenKel  211 

minister  to  Germany  a  personality  so  agreeable 
to  European  scholars.  He  told  me  of  the  jubilee 
of  Bancroft  which  was  about  to  be  celebrated 
with  marked  honours.  Fifty  years  before  Ban- 
croft had  "  made  his  doctor  "  at  Gottingen,  one 
of  the  earliest  Americans  to  achieve  that  distinc- 
tion, and  the  German  universities  meant  to  show 
emphatically  their  recognition  of  his  merit.  The 
celebration  afterwards  took  place,  not  inter- 
rupted by  the  warlike  uproar  in  which  the  land 
was  about  to  be  involved.  A  proud  honour  in- 
deed for  the  American  minister.  It  was  a  note- 
worthy occasion  to  talk  thus  familiarly  with  one 
of  the  most  illustrious  scholars  of  the  time,  and 
I  recall  fondly  the  pleasant  details  of  the  picture. 
At  Heidelberg  the  February  before  I  had  had 
an  interview  with  Schenkel,  then  the  leading 
theologian  of  that  university.  Him  I  found  in 
his  Studir-Zimmer  without  fire  on  a  cold  day. 
He  seemed  to  scorn  the  use  of  the  Kachelofen, 
the  great  porcelain  stove,  and  was  wrapped  from 
head  to  foot  in  a  heavy  woollen  robe  which 
enveloped  him  and  was  prolonged  about  his  head 
into  a  kind  of  cowl.  He  presented  a  figure 
closely  like  the  portraits  of  some  old  reformers 
heavily  mantled  in  a  garb  approaching  the  monk- 
ish Tracht  which  they  had  forsaken.  It  seemed 
out  of  character  for  Schenkel,  for  he  was  an 
avowed  liberal  and  particularly  far  away  from 
the  old  standards,  but  the  sharp  winter  drove 
even  a  champion  of  heterodoxy  into  this  outer 


212  The  Last  Leaf 

conformity  with  the  old.  In  the  case  of  the 
Berlin  Gelehrten,  however,  the  mediaeval  dress 
was  quite  discarded.  I  chanced  to  see  them  in 
the  spring  with  their  windows  wide  open  to  the 
perfume  of  gardens  and  songs  of  nightingales, 
and  in  the  case  of  Mommsen,  my  picture  of  his 
environment  has  traits  of  geniality,  for  he  sat 
in  light  summer  attire,  his  face  aglow  with 
fatherly  impulses  as  he  played  in  the  soft  air 
with  his  children. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  men  whom  I  met 
in  Berlin  was  Hermann  Grimm,  then  just  rising 
among  the  characters  of  mark,  but  best  known 
at  that  time  as  the  son  of  the  famous  Wilhelm 
Grimm  and  the  nephew  of  Jakob  Grimm, — the 
"  Brothers  Grimm,"  whose  names  through  their 
connection  with  the  fairy  tales  are  stamped  in 
the  memories  not  only  of  men  and  women,  but 
of  children  throughout  the  civilised  world.  The 
"  Brothers  Grimm,"  it  must  be  remembered,  were 
scholars  of  the  profoundest.  The  Teutonic  folk- 
lore engaged  them  not  simply  or  mainly  as  a 
source  of  amusement,  but  as  a  subject  proper 
for  deep  investigation.  They  painfully  gathered 
in  out-of-the-way  nooks  from  the  lips  of  old 
grandames  in  chimney  corners  and  wandering 
singers  in  obscure  villages,  the  survivals  of  the 
primitive  superstitions  of  the  people.  These 
they  subjected  to  scientific  study  as  illustrating 
the  evolution  of  society,  a  deep  persistent  search 
with  results  elaborately  systematised,  of  which 


THe  Brothers  Grimm  213 

the  delightful  tales  so  widely  circulated  are  only 
a  by-product.  Aside  from  their  service  in  the 
field  of  folk-lore  they  grappled  with  many  an- 
other mighty  task.  The  vast  dictionary,  in  which 
German  words  are  not  only  set  down  in  their 
present  meaning  but  followed  throughout  every 
stage  of  their  etymology  with  their  relations  to 
their  congeners  in  other  tongues  indefatigably 
traced  out,  is  a  marvel  of  erudition.  Theirs  also 
was  the  great  Deutsche  Grammatik,  a  philo- 
sophical setting  forth  of  the  German  tongue  in 
its  connection  with  its  far-spreading  Aryan 
affinities.  The  "  Brothers  Grimm  "  were  lovely 
and  pleasant  in  their  lives,  and  in  their  deaths 
they  are  not  divided.  Jakob  was  never  married. 
Wilhelm  was  married,  the  child  of  the  union 
being  the  distinguished  man  with  whom  it  was 
my  fortune  to  talk. 

They  worked  together  affectionately  until  far 
into  old  age,  and  I  have  described  their  graves 
in  the  Matthai  Kirchhof  where  they  lie  side  by 
side. 

I  found  Hermann  Grimm  in  the  study  which 
had  been  the  workshop  through  long  years  of 
his  father  and  uncle.  He  was  a  handsome  man 
in  his  vigorous  years  and  had  married  the 
daughter  of  Bettine  von  Arnim,  the  Bettine  of 
Goethe.  It  is  not  strictly  right  to  class  him  as 
a  historian.  He  was  poet,  playwright,  critic,  and 
novelist,  perhaps  mainly  these,  but  soon  after, 
in  his  position  as  a  professor  in  the  university, 


214  The  Last  Leaf 

he  was  to  produce  his  well-known  Vorlesungen 
uber  Gothe,  a  work  which  though  mainly  critical, 
at  the  present  time  is  a  biography  of  conspicuous 
merit,  which  envisages  the  events  of  a  famous 
epoch.  I  may,  therefore,  properly  include  him 
here,  though  the  wide  range  of  his  activities 
makes  it  difficult  to  place  him  accurately.  It 
paved  the  way  for  our  interview  that  I  knew 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  of  whom  he  was,  in 
Germany,  the  special  admirer  and  student. 
He  had  just  translated  Emerson  into  German 
and  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  Concord  sage,  in- 
fused by  his  inspiration.  Hermann  Grimm 
had  never  seen  Emerson,  and  listened  eagerly 
to  such  details  as  I  could  give  him  of  his 
personality.  He  dwelt  with  enthusiasm  upon 
passages  in  poems  and  essays  by  which  he 
had  been  especially  kindled,  and  hung  upon  my 
account  of  the  voice  and  refined  outward  traits 
of  the  teacher  whom  he  so  reverenced.  I  after- 
wards procured  a  fine  photograph  of  Hermann 
Grimm  which  I  sent  to  Emerson.  A  kind  letter 
from  him,  which  I  still  treasure,  let  me  know 
that  I  had  put  Emerson  deeply  in  my  debt;  up 
to  that  time  he  had  never  seen  a  portrait  of  his 
German  disciple,  though  the  two  men  had  been 
in  affectionate  correspondence.  At  a  later  time 
they  met  and  cemented  a  friendship  which  was 
very  dear  to  both.  Hermann  Grimm  showed  me 
with  pride  the  relics  of  his  father  and  uncle; 
the   rows  of   well-thumbed   volumes;   the  well- 


TKe  Brothers  Grimm  215 

scored  Heften  over  which  their  hands  had 
moved;  their  inkstands  and  pens;  the  rough 
arm-chairs  and  tables  where  they  had  sat.  I 
think  a  trace  from  the  smoke  of  their  pipes  and 
midnight  lamp  still  adhered  to  the  ceiling,  and 
possibly  cobwebs  still  hung  in  the  corners  of  the 
bookcases  which  had  been  there  from  an  ancient 
day. 

Quaint  portraits  of  the  "  Brothers  Grimm " 
at  work  in  their  caps  and  rough  dressing-gowns 
were  at  hand,  but  Hermann  Grimm  had  rather 
the  appearance  of  a  well-groomed  man  of  the 
world.  His  coat  was  fashionable,  his  abundant 
hair  and  flowing  beard  were  carefully  trimmed. 
He  was  not  a  recluse,  though  faithful  to  his 
heredity  and  devoted  mainly  to  scholarly  re- 
search. He  was  at  ease  in  the  clubs  and  also 
at  Court  and  enjoyed  the  give  and  take  of  a 
social  hour  with  friends. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

POETS  AND  PROPHETS 

WHEN,  in  1851,  I  arrived  as  a  freshman 
in  Cambridge,  I  encountered  on  my 
first  visit  to  the  post-office  a  figure  standing 
on  the  steps,  which  at  once  drew  my  attention.  It 
was  that  of  a  man  in  his  best  years,  handsome, 
genial  of  countenance,  and  well-groomed.  A  silk 
hat  surmounted  his  well-barbered  head  and  visage, 
a  dark  frock-coat  was  buttoned  about  his  form, 
his  shoes  were  carefully  polished  and  he  twirled 
a  little  cane.  To  my  surprise  he  bowed  to  me 
courteously  as  I  glanced  up.  I  was  very  humble, 
young  westerner  that  I  was  in  the  scholastic 
town,  and  puzzled  by  the  friendly  nod.  The 
man  was  no  other  than  Longfellow,  and  in  his 
politeness  to  me  he  was  only  following  his  in- 
variable custom  of  greeting  in  a  friendly  way 
every  student  he  met.  His  niceness  of  attire 
rather  amused  the  boys  of  those  days  who,  how- 
ever, responded  warmly  to  his  friendliness  and 
loved  him  much.  This  story  was  current.  He 
had  for  some  time  been  a  famous  man  and  was 
subjected  to  much  persecution  from  sight-seers 

216 


Henry  W.   Longfellow  217 

which  he  bore  good-naturedly.  Standing  one 
day  at  the  Craigie  House  gate  he  was  accosted 
by  a  lank  backwoodsman :  "  Say,  stranger,  I  have 
come  from  way  back ;  kin  you  tell  me  how  I  kin 
git  to  see  the  great  North  American  poet? " 
Longfellow,  entering  into  the  humour  of  the 
situation,  gave  to  the  stranger  his  ready  bow 
and  responded:  "Why,  I  am  the  great  North 
American  poet,"  at  the  same  time  inviting  him 
into  the  garden  with  its  pleasant  outlook  across 
the  Charles  toward  the  Brookline  Hills.  It 
would  be  quite  unjust  to  think  that  there  was 
any  conceit  in  his  remark,  it  was  all  a  joke,  but 
the  thoughtless  boys  of  those  days  took  it  up, 
commemorating  it  in  a  song,  a  parody  of  the 
air  TrancadiUo. 

"  Professor  Longfellow  is  an  excellent  man, 
He  scratches  off  verses  as  fast  as  he  can, 
With  a  hat  on  one  whisker  and  an  air  that  says 

go  it, 
He  says  I  ?m  the  great  North  American  poet. 
Hey,  fellow,  bright  fellow,  Professor  Longfellow, 
He's  the  man  that  wrote  Evangeline,  Professor 

Longfellow." 

This  was  my  first  introduction  to  college 
music  and  I  often  bore  a  quavering  tenor  as 
we  shouted  it  out  in  our  freshman  enthusiasm. 
The  ridicule,  however,  was  only  on  the  surface ; 
we  thoroughly  liked  and  respected  the  genial  poet 
and  it  was  a  great  sorrow  to  us  that  he  resigned 


21 8  TKe  Last  Leaf 

during  our  course,  although  his  successor  was 
no  other  than  James  Russell  Lowell,  whose  star 
was  then  rising  rapidly  with  the  Biglow  Papers. 
It  was  our  misfortune  that  the  succession  was 
not  close.  We  had  two  professors  of  modern 
literature,  both  famous  men,  but  the  usual 
calamity  befell  us  which  attaches  to  those  who 
have  two  stools  to  sit  upon.  We  fell  to  the 
ground.  We  had  a  little  of  Longfellow  and  a 
little  of  Lowell,  the  gap  in  the  succession  un- 
fortunately opening  for  us.  I  did,  however,  hear 
Longfellow  lecture  and  it  is  a  delightful  memory. 
His  voice  was  rich  and  resonant,  bespeaking  re- 
finement, and  it  was  particularly  in  reading 
poetry  that  it  told.  I  recall  a  discussion  of 
German  lyrics,  the  criticism  interspersed  with 
many  readings  from  the  poets  noted,  which  was 
deeply  impressive.  At  one  time  he  quoted  the 
"  Shepherd's  Song  "  from  Faust,  "  Der  Schafer 
putzte  sich  zum  Tanz."  This  he  gave  with  ex- 
quisite modulation,  dwelling  upon  the  refrain 
at  the  end  of  each  stanza,  "  Juchhe,  Juchhe, 
Juchheise,  heise,  he,  so  ging  der  Fiedelbogen !  " 
This  he  recited  with  such  effect  that  one  im- 
agined he  heard  the  touch  of  the  bow  upon  the 
strings  of  the  'cello  with  the  mellow,  long-drawn 
cadence.  He  read  to  us,  too,  with  great  feeling, 
the  simple  lyric,  Die  wandelnde  Glocke;  upon  me 
at  least  this  made  so  deep  an  impression  that 
soon  after  having  the  class  poem  to  write,  I 
based  upon  it  my  composition,  devoting  to  it 


TKe  Incubation  of  HiawatHa       219 

far  too  assiduously  the  best  part  of  my  last 
college  term.  I  have  always  felt  that  I  was 
near  the  incubation  of  Longfellow's  best-known 
poem,  perhaps  his  masterpiece,  the  all-pervading 
Hiawatha,  The  college  chapel  of  those  days  was 
in  University  Hall  and  is  now  the  Faculty  Room, 
a  beautiful  little  chamber  which  sufficed  sixty 
years  ago  for  the  small  company  which  then 
composed  the  student  body.  At  either  end  above 
the  floor-space  was  a  gallery.  One  fronted  the 
pulpit,  curving  widely  and  arranged  with  pews 
for  the  accommodation  of  the  professors  and 
their  families.  Opposite  this  was  the  choir  loft 
over  the  preacher's  head,  a  smaller  gallery  con- 
taining the  strident  old-fashioned  reed  organ, 
and  seats  for  the  dozen  or  so  who  made  up  the 
college  choir.  Places  in  the  choir  were  much 
sought  after,  for  a  student  could  stretch  his  legs 
and  indulge  in  a  comfortable  yawn  unmolested 
by  the  scrutiny  of  the  proctors  who  kept  a  sharp 
watch  on  their  brethren  on  the  settees  below. 
The  professors  brought  their  families,  and  the 
daughters  were  sometimes  pretty.  Behind  the 
green  curtains  of  the  choir  loft  one  could  scan 
to  his  heart's  content  quite  unobserved  the 
beauties  at  their  devotions.  The  college  choir 
of  my  time  contained  sometimes  boys  who  had 
interesting  careers.  The  organist  who,  while  he 
manipulated  the  keys,  growled  at  the  same  time 
an  abysmal  bass,  afterward  became  a  zealous 
Catholic,  dying  in  Rome  as  Chamberlain  in  the 


220  THe  Last  Leaf 

Vatican  of  Pope  Leo  XIII.  Horace  Howard 
Furness  was  the  principal  stay  of  the  treble, 
his  clear,  strong  voice  carrying  far ;  my  function 
was  to  afford  to  him  a  rather  uncertain  support. 
My  voice  was  not  of  the  best  nor  was  my  ear 
quite  sure.  I  ventured  once  to  criticise  a  fellow- 
singer  as  being  off  the  pitch;  he  retorted  that 
I  was  tarred  from  the  same  stick  and  he  proved 
it  true,  but  there  we  sang  together  above  the 
heads  of  venerable  men  who  preached.  They 
were  good  men,  sometimes  great  scholars,  but 
the  ears  they  addressed  were  not  always  willing. 
A  somewhat  machine-like  sermoniser  who,  it  was 
irreverently  declared,  ran  as  if  wound  up  but 
sometimes  slipped  a  cog,  had  been  known  to 
pray  "that  the  intemperate  might  become  tem- 
perate, the  intolerant  tolerant,  the  industrious 
dustrious."  Longfellow  always  came  with  his 
beautiful  wife,  the  heroine  of  Hyperion,  whose 
tragic  fate  a  few  years  later  shocked  the  world. 
He  used  to  sit  withdrawn  into  the  corner  of  his 
high-backed  pew,  separated  from  us  in  the  choir 
loft  by  only  a  short  intervening  space,  motionless, 
absorbed  in  some  far-away  thought.  Though  his 
eyes  were  sometimes  closed  I  knew  that  he  was 
not  asleep;  what  could  be  the  topic  on  which 
his  meditation  was  so  intent?  Not  long  after 
Hiawatha  appeared,  and  I  shall  always  believe 
that  in  those  Sunday  musings  in  the  quiet 
little  chapel  while  the  service  droned  on  he  was 
far  away 


THe  Longfellow  Centenary        221 

"  In  the  land  of  the  Dakotas, 
By  the  stream  of  Laughing  Water." 

Some  years  after  came  the  affliction  which 
cast  a  deep  shadow  upon  his  happy  successful 
life.  His  wife  one  evening  in  light  summer 
dress  was  writing  a  letter,  and,  lighting  a  candle 
to  seal  it,  dropped  the  match  among  her  drap- 
eries. The  flame  spread  at  once  and  she  ex- 
pired in  agony;  Longfellow  was  himself  badly 
burned  in  his  effort  to  extinguish  the  flames 
and  always  carried  the  scars.  I  did  not  see  him 
in  those  years  but  have  heard  that  his  mood 
changed,  he  was  no  longer  careful  and  debonair 
but  often  melancholy  and  dishevelled.  Yet  the 
sweetness  of  his  spirit  persisted  to  the  end.  The 
critics  of  late  have  been  busy  with  Longfellow. 
His  gift  was  inferior,  they  say,  and  his  senti- 
ment shallow.  Let  them  carp  as  they  will,  he 
holds,  as  few  poets  have  done,  the  hearts  of  men 
and  women;  still  more  he  holds  the  hearts  of 
children,  and  the  life  of  multitudes  continues 
to  be  softened  and  beautified  by  the  gentle  power 
of  what  he  has  written.  Two  or  three  years 
since  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  present  at 
the  celebration  in  Sanders  Theatre  of  the  cen- 
tenary of  Longfellow's  birth.  There  was  fine 
encomium  from  distinguished  men,  but  to  me  the 
charming  part  of  the  occasion  wras  the  tribute 
of  the  school  children  who  thronged  upon  the 
stage  and  sang  with  fresh,  pure  voices,  the  Village 


222  The  Last  Leaf 

Blacksmith,  the  simple  lines  set  to  as  simple 
music,  "  Under  the  spreading  chestnut-tree,  the 
village  smithy  stands."  In  my  time  the  old  tree 
still  cast  its  shade  over  the  highway  which  had 
scarcely  yet  ceased  to  be  a  village  street.  The 
smithy,  too,  was  at  hand  and  the  clink  of  hammer 
upon  anvil  often  audible;  the  blacksmith,  I  sup- 
pose had  gone  to  his  account.  During  the  chil- 
dren's performance  a  voice  noticeably  clear  and 
fine  sounded  in  the  high  upper  gallery,  a  happy 
suggestion  of  the  voice  of  the  mother  singing  in 
paradise  as  the  daughter  sang  below.  Honour 
to  the  poet  who,- while  so  many  singers  of  our 
time  vex  us  with  entanglements  metaphysical 
and  exasperating,  had  thought  always  for  the 
simplest  hearts  and  attuned  his  lyre  for  them! 
When  I  was  in  the  Divinity  School  we  organ- 
ised a  boat  club,  a  proceeding  looked  upon  ask- 
ance by  sedate  doctors  of  divinity  and  church- 
goers who  thought  the  young  men  would  do 
better  to  stick  to  their  Hebrew,  but  T.  W.  Hig- 
ginson  exclaimed  that  now  he  had  some  hope 
for  the  school.  It  did  take  time.  It  was  a  long 
walk  from  Divinity  Hall  to  the  river  nor  was 
the  exercise  brief,  I  have  found  rarely  more  rap- 
turous pleasure  than  in  the  strenuous  pulls  I  had 
on  the  Charles,  and  I  witnessed  the  development 
of  much  sturdy  manliness  among  those  who,  for- 
saking for  a  time  their  hermeneutics  and  homi- 
lies, gave  themselves  to  the  outdoor  sport.  Our 
club  included  a  number  of  law-students  and  a 


President  Eliot  as  an  Oarsman     223 

young  instructor  or  two;  among  the  latter 
Charles  W.  Eliot,  then  with  his  foot  on  the  first 
round  of  the  ladder  which  he  has  climbed  so 
high.  Eliot  pulled  a  capital  stroke;  my  place 
was  at  the  bow  oar  where  a  rather  light  weight 
was  required  who  at  the  same  time  had  head 
and  strength  enough  to  steer  the  boat  among  the 
perplexing  currents.  Our  excursions  were  some- 
times long.  Once  we  went  down  the  Back  Bay, 
thence  around  Charlestown  up  the  Mystic  to 
Medford,  during  which  trip  I  steered  the  Orion 
without  a  single  rub,  going  and  coming  under 
I  think  some  forty  draw-bridges.  I  have  scarcely 
ever  received  a  compliment  in  which  I  took  more 
pride  than  when  Eliot  at  the  end,  as  we  stood 
sweating  and  happy  at  the  boathouse,  told  me 
that  I  had  proved  myself  a  good  pilot.  One 
evening,  I  remember,  the  sun  had  gone  down  and 
the  surface  of  Back  Bay  perfectly  placid  at  full 
tide  glowed  with  rich  tints ;  the  boats  were  shoot- 
ing numerously  over  the  surface,  cutting  it 
sharply,  the  cut  presently  closing  behind  in  a 
faint  cicatrice  that  extended  far.  I  thought  of 
the  beautiful  simile  in  the  Autocrat  of  the 
Breakfast  Table,  just  then  appearing  in  the 
Atlantic.  Holmes  had  seen  such  things  too,  and 
said  that  they  were  like  the  wounds  of  the 
angels  during  the  wars  in  heaven  as  described 
in  Paradise  Lost,  gashes  deep  in  the  celestial 
bodies  but  closing  instantly.  In  those  years  Dr. 
Holmes  was  himself  an  enthusiastic  oarsman  and 


224  The  Last  Leaf 

that  night  whom  should  we  encounter  alone  in 
his  little  skiff  but  the  Autocrat  himself,  out  for 
his  pleasure;  he  was  plainly  recognisable,  though 
in  most  informal  athletic  dress,  and  as  we  sped 
past  him  a  few  rods  away,  Eliot  from  the  stroke 
shouted  a  greeting  over  the  water.  "  Why, 
Charlie,"  came  ringing  back  the  Autocrat's  voice, 
"  I  did  not  know  you  were  old  enough  to  be 
out  in  a  boat !  "  Charlie  was  old  enough,  in  fact 
our  best  oar,  and  took  pleasure  in  demonstrating 
his  maturity  to  the  family  friend  who  had  seen 
him  grow  up. 

Dr.  Holmes  was  one  of  the  most  versatile  of 
men.  We  saw  him  here  at  home  with  the  oar 
in  the  open.  He  was  an  excellent  professor  of 
anatomy,  renowned  for  his  insight  and  readiness 
in  adapting  means  to  ends  in  the  difficult  science 
where  his  main  work  lay.  Literature  was  merely 
his  hobby,  and  he  was  wit,  critic,  philosopher, 
historian,  poet,  good  in  all.  Many  a  brilliant 
man  has  come  to  wreck  through  being  too  ver- 
satile. a  Ne  sutor  ultra  crepidam  "  is  undoubt- 
edly a  good  motto  for  the  ordinary  man,  but 
sticking  to  his  last  was  something  to  which  Dr. 
Holmes  could  never  bring  himself,  and  in  a 
marvellous  way  his  abounding  genius  proved 
masterful  in  a  score  of  varying  fields.  But  I 
have  no  purpose  here  to  discuss  or  account  for 
Dr.  Holmes.  He  was  a  delightful  phenomenon 
in  the  life  of  the  nineteenth  century,  with  whom 
I  chanced  to  be  somewhat  in  touch,  and  it  is 


Dr.  Holmes  as  a  Wit  225 

for  me  only  to  note  a  bit  of  the  scintillation 
which  I  saw  brilliantly  diffused.  He  was  fre- 
quently under  my  gaze,  a  low-statured,  nimble 
figure,  a  vivacious,  always  cheerful  face  with  a 
pronounced  chin,  seemingly  ever  on  the  brink  of 
some  outburst  of  merriment.  I  have  heard  him 
described  as  an  "  incarnate  pun,"  but  that  hardly 
did  him  justice;  punster  he  was,  but  he  had  a 
wit  of  a  far  higher  kind  and  moods  of  grave 
dignity.  His  literary  fame  in  those  years  was 
only  incipient,  his  better  work  was  just  then 
beginning.  The  world  appreciated  him  as  a 
humourist  of  the  lighter  kind  and  capable,  too, 
of  spirited  verse  like  Old  Ironsides;  it  was  not 
understood  that  he  possessed  profounder  powers 
and  could  stir  men  to  the  depths.  I  have  a 
vivid  image  of  him  at  a  banquet  of  the  Harvard 
Alumni  Association  of  which  he  was  Second 
Vice-President,  clothed  in  white  summer  garb, 
standing  in  a  chair  that  his  little  figure  might 
be  in  evidence  in  the  crowd,  merrily  rattling  off 
a  string  of  amusing  verses. 

"  I  thank  you,  Mr.  President, 
You  kindly  broke  the  ice, 
Virtue  should  always  go  before, 
I  'm  only  second  vice." 

These  were  the  opening  lines  and  the  audience 
responded  with  roars  to  the  inimitable  fun- 
maker.  In  later  years  we  learned  to  accord  him 
a  higher  appreciation.      The  Autocrat  and  the 

15 


226  THe  Last  Leaf 

Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table  have  deep  and 
acute  thought  as  well  as  wit,  and  what  one  of 
our  poets  has  produced  a  grander  or  more  solemn 
lyric  than  the  Chambered  Nautilus?  I  dwell 
with  emotion  upon  the  funeral  of  Lowell,  in  itself 
a  touching  occasion,  because  it  so  happened  that 
I  saw  on  that  day  three  great  men  for  the  last 
time,  Justin  Winsor,  Phillips  Brooks,  and  Dr. 
Holmes.  I  stood  on  the  stairs  at  the  rear  of 
Appleton  Chapel  as  the  audience  came  down  the 
aisle  at  the  close.  The  coffin  of  Lowell  rested 
for  a  moment  on  the  grass  under  its  wreaths, 
President  Eliot  and  Holmes  walked  side  by  side; 
I  have  a  distinct  image  of  the  countenance  of 
Holmes  as  they  came  slowly  out.  It  was  no 
longer  a  young  face  but  it  had  all  the  old  viva- 
city and  even  at  the  moment  was  cheerful  rather 
than  serious;  it  had  not,  however,  the  cheerful- 
ness of  a  man  who  looks  lightly  on  life,  but  that 
of  one  whose  philosophy  enables  him  to  conquer 
sorrow  and  look  beyond,  the  face  of  a  man  who 
might  write  a  triumphant  hymn  even  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  death.     These  lines  ran  in  my  thought: 

"  Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  oh  my  soul, 
As  the  swift  seasons  roll! 
Leave  thy  low  vaulted  past, 
Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last 
Shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast, 

Till  thou  at  length  art  free, 
Leaving  thine  out-grown  shell 

By  life's  unresting  sea !  " 


J.  R.  Lowell  227 

The  fame  of  James  Russell  Lowell,  too,  in 
these  years  was  incipient.  As  a  writer  he  had 
shown  himself  to  be  elegantly  schooled,  but  in 
the  Fable  for  Critics  and  the  Biglow  Papers,  he 
had  burst  forth  as  a  most  effective  and  slashing 
satirist.  His  culture  was  closely  and  perfectly 
fitted,  but  when  scratched,  revealing  in  full 
proportions  the  "  Whang-doodle  "  Yankee.  The 
whang,  however,  handling  with  all  the  deftness 
in  the  world  the  broadest  and  subtlest  themes, 
and  the  doodle  standing  for  a  patriotism  of  the 
noblest.  Those  who  came  into  close  connection 
with  him  say  that  he  grew  morbidly  fastidious, 
shrinking  from  coarse  contacts  and  was  happy 
at  last  only  in  a  delicate  environment.  When 
in  health,  nevertheless,  he  was  a  Yankee  of  the 
truest,  though  sublimated  by  his  genius  and 
superb  accomplishments.  I  know  a  little  inn 
far  away  among  the  hills  on  whose  porch  half 
concealed  by  the  honeysuckle,  Lowell  is  said 
often  to  have  sat  listening  to  the  dialect  of  the 
farmers  who  "  vanned  "  and  "  vummed  "  as  they 
disputed  together  in  the  evenings  after  the  chores 
were  done.  Lowell  had  the  dialect  in  his  very 
bones,  and  loved  it,  but  took  pains  to  confirm  his 
knowledge  of  it  by  studying  on  the  sod. 

"  An'  yit  I  love  the  unhighschooled  ways 
01'  farmers  hed  when  I  was  younger — 
Their  talk  wuz  meatier  and  would  stay, 

While  book-froth  seems  to  whet  your  hunger. 


328  The  Last  Leaf 

For  puttin'  in  a  downright  lick  'twixt  humbug's 

eyes,  there  "s  few  can  metch  it. 
An'  then  it  helves  my  thoughts  as  slick,  ez  stret 

grained  hickory  does  a  hetehet." 

On  one  occasion  I  heard  Lowell  tell  a  story 
in  which  he  surrendered  himself  fully  to  the 
rustic  heredity  that  was  in  him,  flinging  aside 
the  accretions  of  culture.  "  It  is  strange/'  he 
said,  "  how  even  the  moral  sense  of  men  may 
become  warped.  In  a  certain  Cape  Cod  village, 
for  instance,  it  had  long  been  the  custom  to  profit 
from  the  wrecks  that  happened  upon  the  dan- 
gerous shore,  until  at  last  the  setting  of  false 
lights  and  the  appropriation  of  the  lost  cargoes 
became  a  legitimate  business.  One  Sunday  a 
congregation  at  church  (they  were  rigid  Puritans 
and  punctilious  about  worship)  was  startled  by 
the  news  that  a  West  India  ship  loaded  with 
sugar  was  going  to  pieces  on  the  rocks  near  by. 
The  birds  of  prey  flocked  to  make  prize  of  the 
booty.  A  good  deacon  bagged  a  large  quantity 
of  sugar,  piling  it  on  the  shore  while  he  went 
for  his  oxen  to  carry  it  home.  The  bad  boys, 
however,  resolved  to  play  a  trick  on  the  deacon ; 
they  emptied  out  the  sugar  and  filled  the  bags 
with  clean,  brown  sand,  which  counterfeited 
well.  This  the  deacon  laboriously  carted  to  his 
barn,  and  only  came  to  a  sense  of  his  loss  when 
his  wife  at  night  attempted  to  sweeten  his  tea 
from  the  bags.     This  brought  out  from  the  dea- 


Lowell's  YanKee  Story  229 

con  the  following  remark :  '  I  declare,  when  I  felt 
that  'ar  sand  agrittin'  between  my  teeth,  I  don't 
know  but  it  was  wicked,  but  I  e'en  a'most  wished 
that  there  would  n't  never  be  another  wreck! '  " 
Lowell  told  the  story  with  all  the  humour  pos- 
sible,   rendering   the   deacon's    remark   with    a 
twang  and  an  emphatic  dwelling  on  the  double 
negative  (a  thing  which  Lowell  believed  we  had 
suffered  to  drop  out  of  polite  speech  unfortu- 
nately) with  inimitable  effect  and  most  evident 
enjoyment.      The  substratum  of  the  man  was 
Yankee  but  probably  no  other  of  the  stock  has 
so  enriched  himself  with  the  best  of  all  lands 
and  times.      He  had  a  most  delicate  sense  of 
what  was  best  worth  while  in  all  literatures  and 
absorbed  it  to  the  full.     One  of  the  greatest  mis- 
takes I  ever  made  was  in  neglecting  to  become 
a  member  of  his  class  in  Dante  when  the  oppor- 
tunity came  to  me.    What  an  interpreter  he  was 
of  the  soul  of  the  great  Italian,  and  with  what 
unerring  instinct  he  penetrated  to  what  was  best 
in  the  sages  and  poets  of  the  world  everywhere! 
His  own  gifts  as  poet  and  thinker  were  of  the 
finest,  and  they  were  set  off  with  acquirements 
marvellous  in  their  range  and  in  the  unerring 
precision  with  which  they  were  selected.     I  re- 
call him  at  a  very  impressive  moment.     Many 
regard  Lowell's  Commemoration  Ode,  read  at 
the   Commemoration    in   1865   of   the   Harvard 
soldiers  who  had  taken  part  in  the  Civil  War, 
as   the   high-water   mark   of   American   poetry. 


23°  THe  Last  Leaf 

Whether  or  not  that  claim  is  just  I  shall  not 
debate,  but  it  is  a  great  composition  and  per- 
haps Lowell's  best.  The  occasion  was  indeed  a 
noble  one.  A  multitude  had  collected  in  the 
college-yard  and  through  it  wound  the  brilliant 
procession  of  soldiers  who  had  taken  part  in 
the  war,  marching  to  the  drum  and  wearing  for 
the  last  time  the  uniform  in  which  they  had 
fought.  From  Major-Generals  and  Admirals 
down  to  the  high  privates,  all  were  in  blue,  and 
the  sun  glittered  resplendent  on  epaulet  and 
lace  worn  often  by  men  who  walked  with  diffi- 
culty, halting  from  old  wounds.  The  exercises 
in  the  church,  the  singing  of  Luther's  hymn,  A 
Mighty  Fortress  is  our  God,  the  oration  and  the 
impressive  prayer  of  Phillips  Brooks  were  fin- 
ished. The  assembly  collected  under  the  great 
tent  which  filled  the  quadrangle  formed  by  the 
street,  Harvard  and  Hollis  Halls  and  Holden 
Chapel.  I  sat  at  the  corner  by  the  side  of 
Phillips  Brooks.  He  was  the  Chaplain  of  the 
day  and  I  had  been  honoured  by  a  commission 
to  speak  for  the  rank  and  file.  The  speeches, 
though  not  always  happy,  preserved  a  good  level 
of  excellence.  At  length  came  Lowell.  He 
stood  with  his  back  toward  Hollis  about  midway 
of  the  space.  He  was  then  in  his  best  years, 
brown-haired,  dark-eyed,  rather  short-necked, 
with  a  full  strong  beard,  his  intellectual  face, 
an  Elizabethan  face,  surmounting  a  sturdy  body. 
His  manner  was  not  impassioned,  he  read  from 


TKe  Commemoration  Ode  231 

a  manuscript  with  distinctness  which  could  be 
heard  everywhere,  but  I  do  not  recall  that  his 
face  kindled  or  his  voice  trembled.  Even  in  the 
more  elevated  passages,  I  think  we  hardly  felt 
as  he  proceeded  that  it  was  the  culmination  of 
the  day's  utterances  and  that  we  were  really 
then  and  there  in  an  epoch-making  event.  Un- 
fortunately for  me  my  speech  was  yet  to  come 
and,  unpractised  as  I  was,  I  was  uncomfortably 
nervous  as  to  what  I  should  say.  I  lost  there- 
fore the  full  effect  of  the  masterpiece.  One  or 
two  of  the  speakers  on  the  programme  had 
dropped  out  and  behold  it  was  my  turn.  The 
announcement  of  my  name  with  a  brief  introduc- 
tion from  the  chairman  struck  my  ear,  and  it 
was  for  me  to  stand  on  my  feet  and  do  my  best. 
My  voice  sounded  out  into  the  great  space  in 
which  the  echo  of  Lowell's  was  scarcely  silent. 
I  spoke  for  the  rank  and  file  and  in  my  whole 
career  of  nearly  eighty  years  it  was  perhaps  the 
culminating  moment,  when  fate  placed  me  in 
a  juxtaposition  so  memorable. 

In  1857  I  sent  a  poem  to  the  Atlantic  then  just 
beginning  under  his  editorship.  My  poem  came 
back  with  the  comment,  "  Hardly  good  enough, 
but  the  writer  certainly  deserves  encourage- 
ment." This  frost,  though  not  unkind,  nipped 
my  budding  aspirations  in  that  direction.  I 
hung  my  modest  harp  on  the  willows  and  have 
almost  never  since  twanged  the  strings.  At  a 
later  time  in  England  I  came  into  pleasant  rela- 


232  The  Last  Leaf 

tions  with  Lowell  and  saw  his  tender  side.  His 
term  as  Minister  to  England  had  come  to  a  close. 
He  had  just  lost  his  wife  and  was  in  deep  afflic- 
tion, the  sorrow  telling  upon  his  health,  but  he 
took  kind  thought  for  me  and  helped  me  zealously 
in  my  quest  of  materials  for  a  considerable 
historical  work.  He  enable  me  to  approach 
august  personages  whom  otherwise  I  could  not 
have  reached;  in  particular  securing  for  me  a 
great  courtesy  from  the  Duke  of  Cleveland,  a 
descendant  of  Vane,  who  gave  me  carte  blanche 
to  visit  Raby  Castle  in  Durham,  Vane's  former 
home,  a  magnificent  seat  not  usually  open  to 
visitors  but  which  I  saw  thoroughly.  I  have  al- 
ready mentioned  the  funeral  of  Lowell.  It  took 
place  on  a  lovely  day  in  the  August  of  1891. 
The  procession  passed  from  Appleton  Chapel  to 
Mount  Auburn,  and  I,  hurrying  on  reached  the 
open  grave  before  the  line  arrived.  It  was  a 
spot  of  great  beauty  in  a  dell  below  the  pleasant 
Indian  Ridge  on  which  just  above  lies  the  grave 
of  Longfellow.  At  a  few  rods'  distance  is  the 
sunny  bank  where  later  was  laid  to  rest  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes.  Close  at  hand  to  the  grave 
of  Lowell  lay  his  gifted  wife,  Maria  White  who 
wrote  the  lovely  poem  "  The  Alpine  Shepherd," 
and  the  three  brilliant  and  intrepid  nephews 
who  were  slain  in  the  Civil  War.  The  old  horn- 
beams, quaint  and  unusual  trees,  stand  sentry 
on  either  hand.  I  saw  the  coffin  lowered. 
Standing  just  behind  Phillips  Brooks,  I  heard 


Lowell's  Funeral  233 

for  the  last  time  the  voice  of  my  boyhood  friend 
reading  with  tenderness  the  burial  service.  One 
final  experience  remained  for  me  on  that  day 
which  I  especially  treasure.  Leaving  the  ceme- 
tery I  walked  the  short  distance  to  the  gate  of 
Elmwood,  the  birthplace  and  always  the  home 
of  Lowell.  This  spot  he  especially  loved,  he 
knew  its  trees,  every  one,  and  the  birds  and 
squirrels  that  came  to  visit  them.  I  stood  at 
the  gate  looking  toward  the  old  mansion  aloof 
among  the  woods.  I  had  often  stood  there  and 
looked  toward  the  house,  but  now  it  had  a  dif- 
ferent aspect;  usually  its  doors  and  windows 
were  tightly  closed,  but  now  everything  was  wide 
open,  the  mourners  had  not  returned  to  the 
house  and  at  the  moment  no  living  being  was 
visible.  The  windows  and  the  portal  looked  out 
upon  the  late  afternoon,  in  the  dead  silence;  in 
the  heightened  feeling  of  the  moment  it  seemed 
to  me  that  the  mansion  had  come  to  life,  that 
it  missed  the  fine  spirit  that  had  so  lately  flown 
forth  from  it,  that  with  lids  widely  apart  and 
distressful  it  looked  forth  into  the  great  spacious 
heavens  after  a  loved  soul  that  had  passed  from 
it  into  the  world  beyond.  It  was  only  a  dream 
of  my  excited  fancy,  but  I  shall  always  think 
of  Elmwood  as  it  was  that  afternoon. 

I  am  so  fortunate  as  to  have  a  close  associa- 
tion with  the  town  of  Concord.  My  first  Ameri- 
can ancestor,  landing  from  his  ship  in  1635,  went 
thither  with  the  earliest  settlers  and  established 


234  TKe  Last  Leaf 

himself  on  the  level  at  the  west  of  the  town, 
at  that  time  I  suppose  the  outmost  Anglo-Saxon 
frontier  of  the  Western  continent.  Seven  gen- 
erations of  his  descendants  have  lived  in  the  town. 
I  am  in  the  eighth,  and,  though  not  native,  and 
only  transiently  resident,  I  have  a  love  for  it 
and  it  is  a  town  worth  loving.  It  is  fair  by 
nature,  pleasant  hills  rising  among  green  levels 
and  the  placid  river  creeping  toward  the  sea.  It- 
still  maintains  its  vigorous  town-meeting  and 
holds  well  to  the  ancient  traditions.  The  thir- 
teen colonies  made  on  its  soil  their  first  forcible 
resistance  to  British  aggression  and  there  is  no 
village  in  America  so  associated  with  great  men 
of  letters.  When  a  boy  of  ten  in  1844  I  was 
swapped  with  a  cousin,  he  going  for  a  year  to 
western  Xew  York,  while  I  went  for  a  year  to 
the  house  of  my  aunt  in  Concord,  the  ancient 
homestead  out  of  which  eighty  years  before  my 
great-grandfather  had  gone  with  gun  in  hand 
to  take  his  part  with  the  Minute  Men.  Emer- 
son had  just  become  famous  through  Nature, 
Thoreau  was  then  a  young  man  quite  unknown 
to  fame.  The  Alcotts  the  year  before  had  lived 
next  door  to  my  aunt,  Louisa,  a  child  of  twelve, 
and  her  sisters  the  "  Little  Women  "  whom  the 
world  now  knows  so  well.  Close  to  the  Battle 
Ground  stood  the  two  tall  gate-posts  behind  which 
lay  the  "  Old  Manse "  whose  "  Mosses  "  Haw- 
thorne was  just  then  preserving  for  immortality. 
With  all  these  I  then,  or  a  little  later,  came  into 


TKoreaxi  in  "Young  Manhood      235 

touch  and  I  can  tell  how  the  figures  looked  as 
scanned  by  the  eyes  of  a  boy. 

Thoreau  in  those  days  was  known  in  the  town 
as  an  irregular,  eccentric  spirit,  rather  hopeless 
for  any  practical  purpose.  He  could  make  a 
good  lead-pencil  but  having  mastered  the  art  he 
dropped  it,  preferring  to  lead  a  vagabond  life, 
loitering  on  the  river  and  in  the  woods,  rather 
to  the  disquietude  of  the  community,  though  he 
had  a  comfortable  home  cared  for  by  his  good 
mother  and  sister.  He  housed  himself  in  a  wig- 
wam at  Walden  Pond  and  was  suspected  of 
having  started  from  the  brands  of  his  camp  a 
forest  fire  which  had  spread  far.  This  strange 
man,  rumour  said,  had  written  a  book  no  copy 
of  which  had  ever  been  sold.  It  described  a 
week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimac  rivers.  The 
edition  fell  dead  from  the  press,  and  all  the 
books,  one  thousand  or  more,  he  had  collected 
in  his  mother's  house,  a  queer  library  of  these 
unsold  books  wrhich  he  used  to  exhibit  to  visitors 
laughing  grimly  over  his  unfortunate  venture  in 
the  field  of  letters.  My  aunt  sent  me  one  day 
to  carry  a  message  to  Mrs.  Thoreau  and  my  rap 
on  her  door  was  answered  by  no  other  man  than 
this  odd  son  who,  on  the  threshold  received  my 
message.  He  stood  in  the  doorway  with  hair 
which  looked  as  if  it  had  been  dressed  with  a 
pine-cone,  inattentive  grey  eyes,  hazy  with  far- 
away musings,  an  emphatic  nose  and  disheveled 
attire  that  bore  signs  of  tramps  in  woods  and 


236  The  Last  Leaf 

swamps.     Thinking  of  the  forest  fire  I  fancied 
he  smelled  of  smoke  and  peered  curiously  up 
the  staircase  behind  him  hoping  I  might  get  a 
glimpse  of  that  queer  library  all  of  one  book 
duplicated  one  thousand  times.     The  story  went 
that  his  artless  mother  used  to  say  that  Emerson, 
when  he  talked,  imitated  Henry,  and  I  well  recall 
a  certain  slow  hesitation  and  peculiar  upward 
intonation  which  made  me  think  of  Emerson  at 
whose  house  I  had  often  been.     The  Week  on  the 
Concord  and  Merrimac  Rivers  found  its  public 
at  last  and  I  suppose  a  copy  of  the  first  edition, 
authenticated  as  having  belonged  to  that  queer 
library,  would  easily  bring  to-day  in  the  market 
its  weight  in  gold.      Whether  or  not  Thoreau 
deserves  great  fame  the  critics  sometimes  dis- 
cuss.    I  heard  a  distinguished  man  say  that  he 
was  greatly  inferior  to  Gilbert  White  of  Mel- 
bourne, and  I  myself  feel  that  Lowell  in  some 
of  his  essays  recording  his  study  of  the  nature 
life  at  Elmwood  equalled  in  fine  insight,  and  sur- 
passed in  expression  the  observer  at  Concord. 
Then   in  these  later  years  we  have  had  John 
Muir  and  John  Burroughs  who  cannot  be  set 
low,  but  among  American  writers  Thoreau  was 
the  pioneer  of  nature-study.     Audubon  had  pre- 
ceded him  but  he  worked  mainly  with  the  brush ; 
to  multitudes  Thoreau  opened  the  gate  to  the 
secrets  of  our  natural  environment.     The  subtle 
delicacy  of  the  grass-blade,  the  crystals  of  the 
snowflake,  the  icicle,  the  marvel  of  the  weird 


Louisa  Alcott  in  GirlKood  237 

lines  traced  by  the  flocks  of  wild  geese  athwart 
the  heavens  as  they  migrated,  these  he  watched 
and  recorded  with  loving  accuracy  and  sensitive 
poetic  feeling  as  no  one  in  our  land  before  had 
done.  I  have  thrown  a  stone  upon  the  cairn  at 
Walden  Pond  which  has  now  grown  so  high 
through  the  tributes  of  his  grateful  admirers.  I 
shall  throw  still  others  in  grateful  admiration 
if  the  opportunity  comes  to  me. 

Many  years  ago  I  used  to  feel  that  Louisa 
Alcott  and  I  were  in  a  certain  way  bracketed 
together.  F>oth  were  children  of  Concord  in  a 
sense,  she  by  adoption  and  I  through  the  fact 
that  it  had  been  the  home  of  my  forbears  for 
seven  generations.  We  were  nearly  of  the  same 
age  and  simultaneously  made  our  first  ventures 
into  the  world  of  letters,  taking  the  same  theme, 
the  Civil  War.  One  phase  of  this  she  portrayed 
in  her  Hospital  Sketches,  another,  I  in  my  Colour 
Guard.  So  we  started  in  the  race  together  but 
Louisa  soon  distanced  me,  emerging  presently 
into  matchless  proficiency  in  her  books  for 
children.  I  sometimes  saw  her  after  she  had 
become  famous  when  she  was  attuning  sweetly 
the  hearts  of  multitudes  of  children  with  her 
fine  humanity.  She  was  a  stately  handsome 
woman  with  a  most  gracious  and  unobtrusive 
manner.  She  mingled  with  her  neighbours,  one 
of  the  quietest  members  of  the  circle.  Said  a 
kinswoman  of  mine  who  lived  within  a  few 
doors : 


238  The  Last  Leaf 

It  is  so  hard  to  think  of  Louisa  as  being  a  dis- 
tinguished personage;  she  sits  down  here  with  her 
knitting  or  brings  over  her  bread  to  be  baked  in 
my  oven  as  anybody  might  do,  and  chats  about  vil- 
lage matters,  as  interested  over  the  engagements  of 
the  girls  and  sympathising  with  those  in  sorrow  as 
if  she  had  no  broader  interest. 


She  was  indeed  one  of  those  who  bore  her 
honours  meekly.  I  recall  her  vividly  when  she 
was  well  past  youth,  in  the  enjoyment  of  the 
substantial  gains  success  had  brought.  In  her 
childhood  she  had  known  pinching  poverty,  for 
her  philosophic  father  could  never  exchange  his 
lucubrations  for  bread  and  clothes,  philosophis- 
ing, however,  none  the  less.  But  her  success 
brought  with  it  no  flush,  only  an  opportunity  for 
her  pleasant  service.  In  these  years  my  mood 
toward  her  had  quite  changed;  at  first  I  had 
thought  of  her  as  a  competitor,  perhaps  as  on 
my  level.  When  I  learned,  however,  that  about 
that  time  she  had  been  reading  my  History  of 
German  Literature  with  approval,  I  felt  that  I 
was  greatly  honoured,  that  a  mind  of  high  dis- 
tinction had  condescended  to  notice  my  pages. 
During  the  '80s  when  the  "School  of  Philosophy'' 
was  holding  its  sessions  in  the  rustic  temple  on 
the  Lexington  Road  where  her  Orphic  father  was 
hierophant,  it  was  rumoured  that  Louisa  looked 
somewhat  askance  upon  the  sublimated  discus- 
sions of  the  brotherhood  that  gathered.     What 


HawtHorne  at  tHe  Old  Manse      239 

was  said  was  very  wise,  but  far  removed  from 
what  one  finds  in  children's  books,  but  Louisa 
was  sometimes  present,  a  dignified  hostess  to  the 
strangers  who  came,  taking  her  modest  part 
among  the  women  in  the  entertainment  of  the 
guests  but  never  in  the  conclave  as  a  participant. 
Alas !  that  she  went  so  prematurely  to  her  grave 
in  "  Sleepy  Hollow  " ! 

Hawthorne  came  into  my  consciousness  when 
I  was  a  boy  of  ten  at  school  near  the  tall  stone 
gate-posts  immortalised  by  the  great  novelist  as 
guarding  the  entrance  to  the  Old  Manse.  The 
big  gambrel-roofed  building  standing  close  to  the 
Battle  Ground  as  it  stood  on  the  19th  of  April, 
1775,  was  unpainted  and  weather-stained,  the 
structure  showing  dark  among  the  trees  as  one 
looked  from  the  road.  All  the  world  knows  it 
as  described  outside  and  in  by  its  famous  tenant. 
It  is  a  shrine  which  may  wTell  evoke  breathless 
interest.  The  ancient  wainscoting,  the  ample 
low-studded  rooms,  the  quaint  fireplace,  and  at 
the  rear  towTard  the  west  the  windows  with  their 
small  panes  on  some  of  which  Hawthorne  made 
inscriptions.  "  Every  leaf  and  twig  is  outlined 
against  the  sky,"  or  words  to  that  effect, 
"  scratched  with  my  wife's  diamond  ring  " ;  here 
the  sunset  pours  in  gorgeously  but  there  is  more 
of  shadow  than  sunlight  about  the  Old  Manse, 
and  that  is  befitting  for  a  dwelling  with  associa- 
tions somewhat  sombre.  In  later  years  Haw- 
thorne occupied  a  house  on  the  Lexington  Road, 


240  THe  Last  Leaf 

new  and  modern,  writing  there  some  famous 
books  in  an  upper  study  said  to  be  accessible 
only  through  a  trap-door,  but  the  Old  Manse  was 
the  appropriate  home  for  him.  It  was  there 
that  his  young  genius  produced  its  earlier  fruit 
and  it  deserves  to  be  particularly  cherished.  As 
a  little  child  I  went  once  with  my  father  and 
mother  to  Brook  Farm  in  West  Roxbury,  at  the 
time  when  the  community  was  most  interesting. 
The  famous  disciples  of  Fourier  were  then,  I 
suppose,  for  the  most  part  present,  Margaret 
Fuller,  Hawthorne,  George  Ripley,  George  Wil- 
liam Curtis,  Charles  A.  Dana  and  the  rest,  but 
I  was  too  young  to  take  note  of  them.  I  recall 
only  George  Ripley,  the  head  of  the  enterprise, 
in  a  rough  working-blouse  who  welcomed  us  at 
the  gate.  My  father  and  he  were  old  friends 
and  as  supper-time  came  and  the  community 
gathered  singly  and  in  groups  in  the  dining-hall 
from  the  fields  and  groves  outside,  he  said  to 
my  father:  "Your  seat  at  the  table  will  be 
next  to  Hawthorne,  but  I  shall  not  introduce 
you,  Mr.  Hawthorne  prefers  not  to  be  introduced 
to  people."  It  was  a  cropping  out  of  the  strange 
aloofness  for  which  Hawthorne  was  marked.  He 
could  do  his  part  in  the  day's  work,  be  a  man 
among  men,  dicker  with  the  importers  at  the 
Salem  Custom  House  and  as  Consul  at  Liver- 
pool, rub  effectively  with  the  traders,  but  his 
choice  was  always  for  solitude,  he  liked  to  go 
for  days  without  speaking  to  a  human  being  and 


THe  Spectre  of  tHe  Old  Minister   241 

to  live  withdrawn  from  the  contacts  of  the 
world,  even  from  his  neighbours  and  family. 
Probably  it  was  because  he  was  so  thoroughly 
a  recluse  that  I  recall  seeing  Hawthorne  only 
once,  although  he  was  in  the  village  in  whose 
streets  I  was  constantly  passing.  Driving  one 
day  on  the  road  near  his  home  a  companion  ex- 
claimed, "  There  goes  Mr.  Hawthorne  on  the 
sidewalk !  "  I  put  my  head  forward  quickly  to 
get  a  glimpse  from  the  cover  of  the  carriage  of 
so  famous  a  personage,  and  at  the  roadside  was 
a  fine,  tall,  athletic  person  with  handsome  fea- 
tures. My  quick  movement  forward  in  the  car- 
riage he  took  for  a  bow  and  he  returned  it 
raising  his  hat  with  gentlemanly  courtesy,  it  was 
all  through  a  mistake  that  I  got  this  bow  from 
Hawthorne  but  all  the  same  I  treasure  it.  A 
sister-in-law  of  his,  who  was  often  an  inmate  of 
his  home,  told  me  that  Hawthorne  really  be- 
lieved in  ghosts.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
in  the  introduction  to  the  Mosses  from  an  Old 
Manse.  Hawthorne  speaks  of  the  spectre  of 
an  ancient  minister  who  haunted  it,  the  rustling 
of  his  silken  gown  was  sometimes  heard  in  the 
hallways.  My  friend  attributed  this  passage  to 
something  which  happened  during  one  of  her 
visits.  She  sat  one  evening  with  her  sister  and 
Hawthorne  in  the  low-studded  living-room,  and, 
as  was  often  the  case,  in  silence.  She  thought 
she  heard  in  the  entry  the  rustling  of  silk,  it 
might  have  been  a  whistling  of  the  wind  or  the 
16 


242  The  Last  Leaf 

swaying  of  a  drapery,  but  it  seemed  to  her  like 
the  sweeping  along  of  a  train  of  silk.  At  the 
moment  she  thought  that  Mrs.  Hawthorne  was 
passing  through  the  entry,  but  rousing  herself 
from  her  abstraction  she  saw  her  sister  sitting 
quiet  and  remembered  that  she  had  been  so  sit- 
ting for  a  considerable  interval.  "  Why,  I  dis- 
tinctly heard,"  said  she,  "  the  rustling  of  a  silk 
gown  in  the  entry !  "  The  sisters  rose  and  went 
into  the  hallway  for  an  explanation,  but  all  was 
dark  and  still,  no  draperies  were  stirring,  no 
wind  whistled,  and  they  returned  to  their  chairs, 
talking  for  a  moment  over  the  mysterious  sound, 
then  relapsing  into  their  former  quiet.  Haw- 
thorne meantime  sat  dreaming,  apparently  not 
noticing  the  light  ripple  in  the  quiet  of  the  even- 
ing; but  not  long  after — when  my  friend  read 
the  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,  she  found  that 
the  incident  had  made  an  impression  upon  him 
and  that  he  interpreted  the  sound  as  a  ghostly 
happening.  She  told  me  another  story  which 
she  said  she  had  directly  from  Hawthorne.  Dur- 
ing a  sojourn  in  Boston  he  often  went  to  the 
reading-room  of  the  Athenaeum  and  was  parti- 
cularly interested  to  see  a  certain  newspaper. 
This  paper  he  often  found  in  the  hands  of  an 
old  man  and  he  was  sometimes  annoyed  because 
the  old  man  retained  it  so  long.  The  old  man 
lived  in  a  suburb  and  for  some  reason  was 
equally  interested  with  himself  in  that  paper. 
This  went  on  for  weeks  until   one  day   Haw- 


The  Athenaeum  Ghost  243 

thorne,  entering  the  room,  found  the  paper  as 
usual  in  the  hands  of  this  man.  Hawthorne  sat 
down  and  waited  patiently  as  often  before  until 
the  old  man  had  finished.  After  a  time  the  man 
rose,  put  on  his  hat  and  overcoat,  and  took  his 
departure.  As  the  door  of  the  reading-room 
closed  behind  him  Hawthorne  took  up  the  paper 
which  lay  in  disorder  as  the  man  had  left  it, 
when,  lo  and  behold,  his  eye  fell  in  the  first 
column  on  a  notice  of  the  old  man's  death.  He 
was  at  the  moment  lying  dead  in  his  house  in 
the  suburbs  and  yet  Hawthorne  had  beheld  him 
but  a  moment  before  in  his  usual  guise  reading 
the  paper  in  the  Athenseuin!  My  friend  said 
that  Hawthorne  told  her  the  story  quietly  with- 
out attempt  at  explanation  and  she  believed  his 
tli ought  was  that  he  had  actually  seen  a  ghost. 
The  readers  of  Hawthorne  will  recall  passages 
which  are  consonant  with  the  idea  that  Haw- 
thorne believed  in  ghosts. 

No  other  author  has  affected  me  quite  so  pro- 
foundly as  did  Hawthorne.  The  period  of  my 
development  from  childhood  through  youth  to 
maturity  was  coeval  with  the  time  of  his  literary 
activities.  The  first  vivid  impression  I  received 
from  books  came  from  his  stories  for  children, 
Grandfather's  Chair,  Famous  Old  People,  and 
The  Liberty  Tree;  when  somewhat  older  I  read 
The  Rill  from  the  Town  Pump  and  Little  Annie's 
Ramble,  still  later  came  the  weird  creations  in 
which  Hawthorne's  expanding  genius  manifested 


244  THe  Last  Leaf 

itself,  such  as  The  Minister's  Black  Veil,  Rap- 
paccini's  Daughter,  and  The  Celestial  Railroad. 
And  not  less  in  young  manhood  I  was  awed  and 
absorbed  in  the  great  works  of  his  maturity, 
The  Scarlet  Letter,  the  Blithedale  Romance,  The 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  and  the  Marble  Faun. 
Meat  and  drink  as  they  were  to  me  in  my  youth 
and  first  entrance  into  life,  I  naturally  feel  that 
the  author  of  these  books  was  in  mind  pro- 
foundly powerful.  In  point  of  genius  among 
our  Americans  I  should  set  no  man  before  him. 
He  was  not  a  moral  inspirer  nor  a  leader,  he 
gave  to  no  one  directly  any  spiritual  uplift,  nor 
did  he  help  one  directly  to  strength  in  fighting 
the  battles  of  life.  He  was  a  peerless  artist  por- 
traying marvellously  the  secret  things  of  the 
human  soul,  his  concrete  pictures  taken  from 
the  old  Puritan  society,  from  the  New  England 
of  his  day  and  from  the  passionate  Italian  life. 
He  portrays  but  he  draws  no  lesson  any  more 
than  Shakespeare,  his  books  are  pictures  of  the 
souls  of  men,  of  the  sweet  and  wholesome  things 
and  also  the  weakness,  the  sin  and  the  morbid 
defect.  These  having  been  revealed  the  reader 
is  left  to  his  own  inferences.  It  is  fully  made 
plain  that  he  was  a  soft-hearted  man,  at  any  rate 
in  his  earlier  time.  The  stories  he  wrote  at  the 
outset  for  children  are  often  full  of  sweetness 
and  sympathy.  But  as  he  went  on  with  his 
work  these  qualities  are  less  apparent,  the  spirit 
of  the  artist  more  and  more  prevailing,  until  he 


Emerson's  Great-GrandfatHer     245 

paints  with  relentless  realism  even  what  is 
hideous,  not  approving  or  condemning;  it  is  part 
of  life  and  must  be  set  down.  Many  have 
thought  it  strange  that  Hawthorne  apparently 
had  no  patriotism.  In  our  Civil  War  he  stood 
quite  indifferent,  a  marked  contrast  with  the 
men  among  whom  he  lived  and  who  like  him 
have  literary  eminence.  These  passages  stand 
in  his  diary  and  letters.  "February  14,  1862, 
Frank  Pierce  came  here  to-night.  ...  He  is 
bigoted  as  to  the  Union  and  sees  nothing  but 
ruin  without  it.  Whereas  I  should  not  much 
regret  an  ultimate  separation."  "  At  present 
we  have  no  country.  .  .  .  New  England  is 
really  quite  as  large  a  lump  of  earth  as  my 
heart  can  take  in.  I  have  no  kindred  with  or 
leaning  toward  the  abolitionists."  But  his  cool- 
ness to  his  country's  welfare  was  of  a  piece  with 
the  general  coolness  toward  well  and  ill  in  the 
affairs  of  the  world.  Humanity  rolls  before  him 
as  it  did  before  Shakespeare,  sometimes  weak, 
sometimes  heroic,  depressed,  exultant,  suffering, 
happy.  He  did  not  concern  himself  to  regulate 
its  movement,  to  heighten  its  joy,  or  mitigate 
its  sorrow.  His  work  was  to  portray  it  as  it 
moved,  and  in  that  conception  of  his  mission 
he  established  his  masterfulness  as  an  artist, 
though  it  abates  somewhat,  does  it  not?  from  his 
wholeness  as  a  man. 

Some  years  ago  in  introducing  Dr.  Edward 
Waldo  Emerson  to  an  audience  in  St.  Louis,  I 


246  The  Last  Leaf 

said  that  our  great-grandfathers  had  stood  to- 
gether with  the  Minute  Men  of  Concord  at  the 
North  Bridge  on  the  19th  of  April,  1775.  His 
ancestor  as  their  minister  inspiring  them  with 
the  idea  of  freedom,  my  ancestor  as  an  officer, 
who  by  word  and  deed  kept  the  farmers  firm 
before  the  British  volleys.  The  old-time  con- 
nection between  the  two  families  persisted. 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  and  my  father  were  con- 
temporaries coming  through  the  Harvard  gate 
into  the  small  company  of  Unitarian  ministers 
at  about  the  same  period  and  somewhat  asso- 
ciated in  their  young  manhood.  Mrs.  Emerson 
had  been  Lydia  Jackson  of  Plymouth,  baptised 
into  the  old  Pilgrim  Parish  by  the  father  of  my 
mother.  Lydia  Jackson  and  my  mother  had  been 
girls  together,  and  good  friends.  It  was  natural, 
therefore,  that,  with  these  antecedents  when  I  as 
a  young  boy  arrived  in  Concord,  I  should  come 
into  touch  with  the  Emersons.  They  were  in- 
deed pleasant  friends  to  me,  both  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Emerson  receiving  with  kindness  the  child  whose 
parents  they  had  known  when  children.  The 
Emerson  house  on  the  Lexington  Road  is  to-day 
a  world-renowned  shrine,  sixty  years  ago  it  was 
the  quiet  home  of  a  peaceful  family,  lovely  as 
now  through  its  natural  beauty  but  not  yet 
sought  out  by  many  pilgrims.  The  fame  of 
Emerson,  only  recently  established  by  his  Nature 
and  the  earlier  poems,  was  just  beginning  to 
spread  into  world-wide  proportions. 


Emerson  in  Young'  Manhood      247 

I  have  before  me  his  image,  in  his  vigorous 
years,  the  sloping  rather  narrow  shoulders,  the 
slender  frame  erect  and  sinewy  but  never  robust, 
and  a  keen,  firm  face.     In  his  glance  was  com- 
plete kindliness  and  also  profound  penetration. 
His  nose  was  markedly  expressive,  sharp,  and 
well  to  the  fore.     In  his  lips  there  was  geniality 
as  well  as  firmness.     His  smooth  hair  concealed 
a  head  and  brow  not  large  but  well  rounded. 
His  face  was  always  without  beard.     Though 
slight,    he   was   vigorous   and   the   erect   figure 
striding  at  a  rapid  pace  could  be  encountered 
any  day  in  all  weathers,  not  only  on  the  streets 
but  in  the  fields  and  woods.     Unlike  his  neigh- 
bour Hawthorne  his  instincts  were  always  social. 
He  mingled  affably  with  low  and  high  and  I 
have  never  heard  a  more  hearty  tribute  to  him 
than  came  from  an  Irish  washwoman,  his  neigh- 
bour, who  only  knew  him  as  he  chatted  with  her 
over  the  fence  about  the  round  of  affairs  that 
interested  her.     He  always  had  a  smile  and  a 
pleasant   word   for   the   school-children   and   at 
town-meeting  bore  his  part  among  the  farmers 
in  discussing  the  affairs  of  the  community.    His 
voice  in  particular  bespoke  the  man.     It  had  a 
rich  resonance  and  a  subtle  quality  that  gave 
to  the  most  cursory  listener  an  impression  of 
culture.     His  speech  was  deliberate,  sometimes 
hesitating,  and  his  phrases  often,  even  when  he 
talked  on  simple  themes,  had  especial  point  and 
appropriateness. 


248  The  Last  Leaf 

As  a  child  I  recall  him  among  groups  of  chil- 
dren in  his  garden  a  little  aloof  but  beaming 
with  a  happy  smile.  At  a  later  time,  when  I  was 
in  college,  we  used  sometimes  to  walk  the  twenty 
miles  from  Cambridge  to  Concord  and  the  stu- 
dent group  always  found  in  him  a  hospitable 
entertainer.  By  that  time  he  had  reached  the 
height  of  his  fame.  Those  of  us  who  sought 
him  had  been  readers  of  Nature  or  the  poems, 
of  Representative  Men,  and  of  English  Traits. 
For  my  own  part  while  I  did  not  always  under- 
stand his  thought,  much  of  it  was  entering  into 
my  very  fibre.  In  particular  the  essays  on  self- 
reliance  and  idealism  were  moulding  my  life. 
We  approached  him  with  some  awe,  "  If  he  asks 
me  where  I  live,"  said  one  of  our  number,  a  boy 
who  was  slain  in  the  Civil  War,  "  I  shall  tell 
him  I  can  be  found  at  No.  So-and-so  of  such  an 
alley,  but  if  you  mean  to  predicate  concerning 
the  spiritual  entity,  I  dwell  in  the  temple  of  the 
infinite  and  I  breathe  the  breath  of  truth."  But 
when  Emerson  met  us  at  the  gate,  things  were 
not  at  all  on  a  high  transcendental  plane.  There 
was  a  hearty  "  Good-morning,"  significant  from 
him  as  he  stood  among  the  syringas,  and  there 
were  sandwiches  and  strawberries  in  profusion, 
a  plain  bread-and-butter  atmosphere  very  pleas- 
ant to  us  after  a  long  and  dusty  tramp.  On 
one  occasion  Emerson  withdrew  into  the  back- 
ground, we  thought  too  much,  while  he  gave  the 
front  place  in  the  library,  after  he  had  superin- 


.Alcott' s  Discourse  on  Shakespeare   249 

tended  royally  the  satisfaction  of  our  bodily 
needs,  to  his  neighbour  Bronson  Alcott.  Mr. 
Alcott,  white-haired  and  oracular,  talked  to  us 
about  Shakespeare.  There  was  probably  a 
secondary  sense  in  every  line  of  Shakespeare 
which  would  become  apparent  to  all  such  as  at- 
tained the  necessary  fineness  of  soul.  Perhaps 
we  should  find  in  this  the  gospel  of  a  new  Cove- 
nant in  which  Shakespeare  would  be  the  great 
teacher  and  leader.  Mysteries  were  gathering 
about  him,  who  was  he?  Who  really  wrote  his 
plays  and  poems?  The  adumbrations  of  a  new 
supernatural  figure  were  looming  in  the  concep- 
tion of  the  world.  Mr.  Alcott  mused  through 
the  afternoon  in  characteristic  fashion  and  Emer- 
son sat  with  us,  silently  absorbing  the  mystic 
speculation. 

But  Mr.  Emerson  was  not  always  silent.  A 
good  friend  of  his  who  was  akin  to  me  and  over 
partial,  invited  him  to  her  house  with  a  little 
circle  of  neighbours  and  lo,  I  was  to  furnish 
the  entertainment !  I  had  written  a  college  poem 
and  with  some  sinking  of  heart  I  learned  that 
I  was  to  read  it  to  this  company  of  which  Emer- 
son was  to  be  a  member.  I  faced  the  music  and 
for  half  an  hour  rolled  off  my  stanzas.  At  the 
close,  my  kinswoman  arranged  that  I  should  talk 
with  Emerson  in  a  corner  by  ourselves  and  for 
another  half-hour  he  talked  to  me.  I  am  bound 
to  say  that  he  said  little  about  my  poem,  but 
devoted  himself  almost  entirelv  to  an  enthusiastic 


250  THe  Last  Leaf 

outpouring  over  Walt  Whitman's  Leaves  of 
Grass,  an  advance  copy  of  which  had  just  been 
sent  him.  A  stronger  commendation  of  a  piece 
of  literary  work  than  he  gave  it  would  be  hard 
to  conceive.  He  had  been  moved  by  it  to  the 
depths  and  his  forecast  for  its  author  was  a 
fame  of  the  brightest.  It  was  then  I  first  heard 
of  Walt  Whitman.  Soon  after  the  world  heard 
much  of  him  and  it  still  hears  much  of  him. 
Emerson  did  not  confine  the  expression  of  his 
admiration  of  Walt  Whitman  to  me,  as  the  world 
knows ;  he  expressed  it  with  an  equal  outspoken- 
ness to  the  poet,  who  curiously  enough  thought 
it  proper  to  print  it  in  gilt  letters  on  the  cover 
of  his  book,  "  I  greet  you  at  the  beginning  of 
a  great  career."  To  do  that  was  certainly  a 
violation  of  literary  comity,  but  who  shall  give 
law^s  to  rough-riding  genius !  It  is  a  penalty  of 
eminence  to  be  made  sponsor  unwittingly  before 
the  public  for  men  and  things  when  reticence 
would  seem  better.  At  any  rate  it  brought 
Whitman  well  into  notice  and  I  have  never 
heard,  rough  diamond  though  he  undoubtedly  was, 
that  Walt  Whitman's  withers  were  wrung  by 
this  breach  of  confidence. 

There  is  a  little  nook  by  Gore  Hall  in  Cam- 
bridge with  which  I  have  a  queer  medley  of 
associations.  One  night  I  was  tossed  in  a  blanket 
there  during  my  initiation  into  the  Hasty  Pud- 
ding Club.  Precisely  there  I  met  Emerson  rather 
memorably  on  the  Commemoration  Day  in  1865 


Emerson's  Poetic  Gift  251 

when  he  said  to  me,  glancing  at  my  soldier's 
uniform,  in  very  simple  words  but  with  an  in- 
tonation that  betrayed  deep  feeling,  "  This  day 
belongs  to  you."  Immediately  after,  hard  by  I 
shook  hands  with  Meade,  the  towering  stately 
victor  of  Gettysburg  in  the  full  uniform  of  a 
corps  commander,  in  contrast  indeed  to  the 
slight,  plainly-dressed  philosopher.  And  only 
the  other  day  I  helped  my  little  granddaughter 
to  feed  the  grey  squirrels  in  the  same  green  nook 
from  which  the  rollicking  boys,  the  sage,  and 
the  warrior  have  so  long  since  vanished. 

I  have  heard  it  remarked  by  a  man  of  much 
literary  discrimination  that  Emerson's  poetic 
gift  was  pre-eminent  and  that  he  should  have 
made  verse  and  not  prose  his  principal  medium 
for  expression.  As  it  is  his  poems  are  few, 
his  habitual  medium  being  prose.  The  critic 
attributed  this  to  a  distrust  which  Emerson  felt 
of  his  power  of  dealing  with  poetic  form,  the 
harmonious  arrangement  of  lines.  He  felt  that 
Emerson  was  right  in  his  judgment  of  himself, 
that  there  was  a  defect  here,  and  that  it  was 
well  for  him  to  choose  as  he  did.  All  this  I 
hesitate  to  accept.  As  regards  form,  while  the 
verse  of  Emerson  certainly  is  sometimes  rough, 
few  things  in  poetry  are  more  exquisite  than 
many  verses  which  all  will  recall.  What  stanzas 
ever  flowed  more  sweetly  than  these  written  for 
the  dedication  of  the  Concord  monument?  "  By 
the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood,"  or  the 


252  The  Last  Leaf 

little  poem  on  the  snow-storm,  "  Announced  by 
all  the  trumpets  of  the  sky  arrives  the  snow." 
The  Boston  Hymn,  too,  though  in  parts  informal 
to  the  point  of  carelessness,  has  passages  of  the 
finest  music, 

"  The  rocky  nook  with  hill-tops  three, 
Looked  eastward  from  the  farms 
And  twice  each  day  the  flowing  sea 
Took  Boston  in  its  arms." 

Emerson  when  he  gave  his  mind  to  it  could 
sing  as  harmoniously  as  the  best.  Possibly  we 
ought  to  regret  that  he  did  not  write  for  the 
most  part  in  verse.  It  is  verse  which  comes  and 
clings  most  closely  to  our  souls  and  which 
memory  holds  most  permanently.  Prose  is  the 
inferior  medium  when  a  great  utterance  is  ad- 
dressed to  men,  it  is  the  singer  pre-eminently 
who  holds  our  hearts  and  lives  forever.  But 
Emerson  chose  to  be  what  he  was  and  we  are 
thankful  for  him.  Many  were  vexed  with  Mat- 
thew Arnold  whom  we  thought  depreciatory,  but 
I  find  no  fault  with  his  summing  up  of  Emerson, 
"  as  the  friend  of  all  those  who  seek  to  live  in 
the  spirit."  His  prose  and  poetry  are  a  precious 
possession  and  we  should  be  grateful  for  both, 
and  for  him.  But  my  purpose  here  as  always  is 
not  to  criticise  but  only  to  touch  the  light  outside 
things,  pausing  at  the  edge  of  profundities. 

I  knew  Emerson  when  I  was  a  child  and  I 


Emerson  in  Age  253 

also  knew  him  when  I  was  well  advanced  in 
years  at  a  time  when,  of  course,  he  was  close 
upon  his  end.  His  old  age  was  pathetic.  As 
often  happens  his  memory  failed  while  his  other 
faculties  were  strong  and  the  embarrassment  of 
the  thinker  aroused  sadness  in  those  who  came 
near  him  as  the  trusty  servant  fell  short,  though 
the  mind  in  general  was  active.  Emerson  felt 
that  I  had  put  him  under  some  obligation  by 
giving  him  the  first  portrait  he  had  ever  seen 
of  his  faithful  German  disciple  and  translator 
Hermann  Grimm.  Perhaps  that  helped  the  wel- 
come with  which  I  was  received  when  I  went 
to  see  him  not  far  from  the  end. 

I  had  as  a  fellow-guest  a  man  who  had  long 
been  intimate  with  him  and  whom  he  was  very 
glad  to  seel  talking  after  tea  in  the  library 
Emerson  said,  "  I  want  to  tell  you  about  a  friend 
in  Germany,  his  name  I  cannot  remember,"  and 
he  moved  to  and  fro  uneasily,  in  his  effort  to 
recall  it.  "This  friend  with  whom  we  have 
taken  tea  to-night,  whose  name  also  I  cannot 
remember,"  here  again  came  a  distressed  look 
at  the  failure  of  his  faculty,  "  I  cannot  remember 
his  name  either,  but  he  can  tell  you  of  this 
German  friend  whose  name  I  have  also  for- 
gotten." It  was  a  sorrow  to  see  the  breaking 
down  of  a  great  spirit  and  his  agitation  as  he 
was  conscious  of  his  waning  power.  And  yet  so 
far  as  I  could  see,  it  was  only  the  memory  that 
was  going;  the  intellectual  strength  was  still 


254  THe  Last  Leaf 

apparent  and  the  amiability  of  his  spirit  was 
perhaps  even  more  manifest  than  in  the  years 
when  he  was  in  the  full  possession  of  himself. 
This  came  out  in  little  things;  he  was  over- 
anxious at  the  table  lest  the  hospitality  should 
come  short,  troubled  about  the  supply  of  butter 
and  apple-sauce,  and  soon  after  I  saw  him  on 
his  knees  on  the  hearth  taking  care  that  the  fire 
should  catch  the  wood  to  abate  the  evening  cool- 
ness that  was  gathering  in  the  room.  At  the 
same  time  his  mood  was  playful.  Mrs.  Emerson 
sat  at  hand,  a  woman  in  her  old  age  of  striking 
beauty,  with  her  silver  hair  beneath  a  cap  of 
lace,  her  violet  eyes,  and  her  white  face.  Miss 
Ellen  Emerson,  too,  was  present,  shielding  her 
father  in  his  decline  like  a  guardian  angel.  Mrs. 
Emerson  spoke  with  pleasure  of  her  old  life  at 
Plymouth.  "  Ah,  Plymouth/'  broke  in  Emerson, 
"  that  town  of  towns.  We  shall  never  hear  the 
last  of  Plymouth !  "  And  so  he  rallied  his  wife 
merrily  over  her  patriotic  love  for  her  birth- 
place. The  time  was  coming  for  him  to  go  and 
he  went  serenely,  the  vital  cord  softly  and  grad- 
ually disengaged.  In  Sleepy  Hollow  lie  near 
each  other  the  four  memorable  graves,  Haw- 
thorne's, Thoreau's,  Louisa  Alcott's,  and  Emer- 
son's. I  know  the  spot  well,  on  the  ridge  which 
slopes  up  from  the  lower  ground,  for  there  my 
own  kin  lie  buried.  Upon  the  same  ridge  rise 
the  tall  oracular  pines  and  there  is  always  a 
sweet  murmur  which  the  feeling  heart  under- 


PHillips  Broohs  tHe  Boy  255 

stands  as  a  sub-conscious  requiem  breathed  by 
the  "  Nature  "  of  which  these  fine  spirits  were 
the  interpreters. 

A  day  or  two  after  entering  college  I  made 
one  of  a  group  of  freshmen,  who,  as  the  dusk 
fell,  were  working  off  their  surplus  energy  by 
jumping  over  the  posts  along  the  curb-stone  of 
a  quiet  street.  One  of  our  number  had  an  un- 
fair advantage,  his  length  of  leg  being  so  great 
that  as  he  bestrode  the  post,  he  scarcely  needed 
to  take  his  feet  from  the  ground,  while  for  the 
rest  of  us  a  good  hop  was  necessary  fairly  to 
clear  the  top.  That  is  my  earliest  memory  of 
Phillips  Brooks.  Big  as  he  was,  he  was  a  year, 
perhaps  two  years,  younger  than  most  of  us,  and 
had  the  boyishness  proper  to  his  immaturity. 
He  had  come  from  his  long  training  in  the  Bos- 
ton Latin  School,  was  reputed,  like  the  rest  of  his 
class,  to  be  able  to  repeat  the  Latin  and  Greek 
grammars  from  beginning  to  end,  exceptions, 
examples,  and  all,  and  to  have  at  his  tongue's 
end  other  acquirements  equally  wonderful  in  the 
eyes  of  us  boys  who  in  our  distant  Western  homes 
had  had  a  smaller  chance.  He  was  an  excellent 
scholar  without  needing  to  apply  himself,  and 
perhaps  had  more  distinction  in  the  student  so- 
cieties than  in  the  class-room.  Socially  he  was 
good-natured  and  playful,  never  aggressive,  too 
modest  to  be  a  leader,  rather  reticent.  It  was 
with  surprise  that  I  heard  Brooks  for  the  first 
time  in  a  college  society.     The  quiet  fellow  of  a 


256  The  Last  Leaf 

sudden  poured  out  a  torrent  of  words  and,  young 
though  I  was,  I  felt  that  thej  were  not  empty. 
There  was  plenty  of  thought  and  well-arranged 
knowledge.  This  pregnant  fluency  always  char- 
acterised his  public  deliverances.  Of  late  years 
it  has  been  reported  that  he  had  at  first  a  defect 
of  speech,  and  to  this  the  extraordinary  momen- 
tum of  his  utterance  was  due.  In  the  early 
time  I  never  heard  of  this.  He  did  not  stammer, 
nor  was  there  other  impediment;  only  this  pre- 
ternaturally  rapid  outpouring  on  occasion,  from 
a  man  usually  quiet.  When  I  heard  him  preach 
in  later  years  the  peculiarity  remained.  It  was 
the  Phillips  Brooks  of  the  Institute  of  1770, 
matured,  however,  into  noble  spiritual  power. 

Brooks  had  attained  nearly  or  quite  his  full 
height  on  entering  college,  nor  was  he  slender. 
His  large  frame  was  too  loosely  knit  to  admit 
of  his  becoming  an  athlete.  He  had  no  interest 
in  outdoor  sports.  I  do  not  recall  that  he  was 
warmly  diligent  in  study  or  general  reading. 
His  mind  worked  quickly  and  easily.  Without 
effort  he  stood  well  in  the  class,  absorbing  what- 
ever other  knowledge  he  touched  without  much 
searching.  His  countenance  and  head  in  boy- 
hood were  noticeably  fine,  the  forehead  broad 
and  full,  the  beardless  face  lighting  up  readily 
with  an  engaging  smile,  the  eyes  large  and 
lustrous.  It  was  evident  that  a  good  and  able 
man  must  come  out  from  the  boy  Phillips 
Brooks,  but  no  one,  not  even  President  Walker, 


His  HealtHy  Hilarity  257 

who  was  credited  with  an  almost  uncanny  pene- 
tration in  divining  the  future  of  his  boys,  would 
have  predicted  the  career  of  Brooks.  Though 
decorous  and  high-minded  he  was  not  marked  as 
a  religious  man.  If  he  were  so,  he  kept  it  to 
himself.  Though  sometimes  hilarious,  he  was 
never  ungentle  or  inconsiderate,  a  wholesome, 
happy  youth,  having  due  thought  for  others  and 
for  his  own  walk  and  conversation,  but  without 
touch  of  formal  piety.  When  I  was  initiated 
into  the  Hasty  Pudding  Club,  I  recognised  in  a 
tall  fiend  whose  trouser  legs  were  very  apparent 
beneath  the  too  scanty  black  drapery  which  en- 
veloped him,  no  other  than  Phillips  Brooks.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  vociferous  of  the  imps  who 
tossed  me  in  the  blanket,  and  later,  when  the 
elaborate  manuscript  I  had  prepared  was  brought 
forth,  was  conspicuously  energetic  in  daubing 
with  hot  mush  from  a  huge  wooden  spoon  the 
sheets  I  had  composed  with  much  painstaking. 
The  grand  event  in  the  "  Pudding  "  of  our  time 
was  the  performance  of  Fielding's  extravaganza 
of  Tom  Thumb.  I  think  it  was  the  club's  first 
attempt  at  an  operatic  performance,  and  it  was 
prepared  with  great  care.  I  suppose  I  am  to- 
day the  only  survivor  among  those  who  took 
part,  and  it  is  a  sombre  pleasure  to  recall  the 
old-time  frolic.  The  great  promoter  of  the  un- 
dertaking was  Theodore  Lyman,  able  and  force- 
ful afterward  as  soldier,  scientist,  and  congress- 
man, who  died  prematurely;  but  the  music  and 


258  The  Last  Leaf 

details  were  arranged  by  Joseph  C.  Heywood, 
later  a  devout  Catholic,  ending  his  career  in 
Rome  as  Chamberlain  of  Pope  Leo  XIII.  In 
the  cast  Heywood  was  King  Arthur  and  Lyman, 
general  of  the  army.  There  were  besides,  a 
throng  of  warriors,  lords,  and  ladies  wonderful 
to  behold.  The  costumes  were  elaborate.  Old 
trunks  and  attics  of  our  friends  were  ransacked 
for  ancient  finery  and  appointments  that  might 
be  made  to  serve.  Provision  was  made  for  thril- 
ling stage  effects,  chief  among  them  a  marvellous 
cow  which  at  a  critical  moment  swallowed  Tom 
Thumb,  and  then  with  much  eructation  worked 
out  painfully  on  the  bass-viol,  belched  him  forth 
as  if  discharged  from  a  catapult.  The  music 
was  an  adaptation  of  popular  airs,  operatic  and 
otherwise,  to  the  words  of  Fielding,  and  was 
fairly  good,  rendered  as  it  was  by  fresh  young 
voices  and  an  orchestra  whose  members  played 
in  the  Pierian  Sodality.  The  merriment  of  the 
lines  was  more  robust  than  delicate,  but  with 
some  pruning  it  passed.  The  bill  of  announce- 
ment, which  was  hung  up  in  the  Pudding  room, 
and  which  possibly  is  still  preserved,  was  very 
elaborately  and  handsomely  designed,  and  I 
think  was  the  work  of  Alexander  Agassiz,  who 
had  much  skill  of  that  kind.  The  performers 
were  all  strenuous  and  some  capable,  but  the 
hit  of  the  evening  was  Phillips  Brooks,  who  per- 
sonated the  giantess  Glumdalca  to  perfection. 
He  was  then  nineteen,  and  had  reached  his  full 


PHillips  DrooKs  in  Comic  Opera  259 

stature.  He  was  attired  in  flowing  skirts  and 
befitting  bodice,  and  wore  a  towering  head-dress 
of  feather  dusters  or  something  similar,  which 
swept  the  ceiling  as  he  strode.  I  had  been  cast 
originally  for  the  Queen,  but  it  was  afterwards 
judged  that  I  had  special  qualifications  for  the 
part  of  Princess.  Like  the  youths  in  Comus,  my 
unrazored  lips  in  those  days  were  as  smooth  as 
Hebe's,  and  I  had  a  slenderness  that  was  quite 
in  keeping.  Dressed  in  an  old  brocade  gown,  an 
heirloom  from  the  century  before,  with  a  lofty 
white  wig,  and  proper  patches  upon  my  pink 
cheeks,  I  essayed  the  r61e  of  tine  belle  dame  sans 
merci.  Brooks  and  I  were  rivals  for  the  affec- 
tion of  Tom  Thumb,  and  I  do  not  recall  which 
succeeded.  The  tragedy  was  most  extreme.  In 
the  closing  scene  the  entire  cast  underwent  de- 
struction, strewing  the  stage  with  a  picturesque 
heap  of  slain.  We  were  not  so  very  dead,  for 
the  victims  near  the  foot-lights  in  order  to  give 
the  curtain  room  to  fall,  drew  up  their  legs  or 
rolled  out  of  the  way,  in  a  spirit  of  polite  ac- 
commodation. The  most  impressive  part  of  the 
spectacle  was  the  defunct  giantess,  whose  wide- 
spreading  draperies  and  head-gear,  as  Brooks 
came  down  with  a  well-studied  crash,  took  up 
so  much  of  the  floor  that  the  rest  of  us  had 
no  room  left  to  die  in  dignity.  The  piece  was 
so  much  of  a  success  that  we  performed  it  again 
at  the  house  of  Theodore  Lyman,  in  Brookline, 
— and  still  again,  at  Chickering  Hall  in  Boston. 


260  THe  Last  Leaf 

Though  Brooks  could  frolic  upon  occasion,  his 
mood  in  his  student  days  was  prevailingly  grave, 
and  as  he  matured,  warmed,  and  deepened  into 
earnest  religious  conviction.  My  own  close 
association  with  him  came  to  an  end  at  our 
graduation.  Our  respective  fates  led  us  in  fields 
widely  apart,  and  we  met  only  at  rare  intervals. 
Ten  years  after  graduation  we  came  together  in 
a  way  for  me  memorable.  He  was  already  held 
in  the  affectionate  reverence  of  multitudes,  and 
perhaps  established  in  the  position  in  which  he  so 
long  stood  as  the  most  moving  and  venerated  of 
American  preachers.  At  the  commemoration 
for  the  Harvard  soldiers,  in  1865,  he  was  the 
chaplain,  and  his  prayer  shares  with  the  Com- 
memoration Ode  of  Lowell  the  admiration  of 
men  as  an  utterance  especially  uplifting.  My 
humble  function  on  that  day  was  to  speak 
for  the  rank  and  file,  and  Brooks  and  I,  as 
classmates,  sat  elbow  to  elbow  at  the  table 
under  the  great  tent.  He  was  charmingly  genial 
and  brotherly.  His  old  playfulness  came  out  as 
he  rallied  me  on  the  deterioration  he  noticed  in 
my  table  manners,  due  no  doubt  to  my  life  in 
camp,  and  rebuked  me  with  mock  sternness  for 
appropriating  his  portion  of  our  common  chicken. 
With  evident  pleasure,  he  drew  out  of  his  pocket 
the  Nation,  then  just  beginning,  and  showed  me 
a  kind  notice  of  my  Thinking  Bayonet,  written 
by  Charles  Eliot  Norton.  But  behind  the  smile 
and  the  joke  lay  a  new  dignity  and  earnestness, 


His  Broadness  of  Spirit  261 

a  quality  he  had  taken  on  since  the  days  of  our 
old  comradeship.  So  it  always  was  as  we  met 
transiently  while  the  decades  passed  until  the 
threshold  of  old  age  lay  across  the  path  for  both 
of  us.  Now  and  then  I  had  from  him  an  affec- 
tionate letter.  One  of  these  I  found  profoundly 
touching.  Theodore  Lyman  lay  prostrate  with 
a  lingering  and  painful  illness  from  which  he 
never  rose.  Brooks  wrote  that  he  had  carried 
to  him  my  Life  of  Young  Sir  Henry  Yane,  and 
read  from  it  to  our  dying  friend.  My  story  had 
interest  for  them,  and  I  felt  that  whatever  might 
befall  my  book  I  had  not  wTorked  in  vain  if  two 
such  men  found  it  wrorthy. 

Phillips  Brooks  early  had  recognition  as  the 
most  important  religious  influence  of  his  time, 
and  his  spirit  was  not  less  broad-minded  than 
it  was  fervent.  In  the  multitudes  that  felt  the 
power  of  his  impassioned  address  were  included 
men  and  women  of  the  most  various  views,  and 
he  quickened  the  life  of  the  spirit  in  all  house- 
holds of  faith.  His  sympathies  were  most 
catholic,  and  this  anecdote  clearly  illuminates 
his  broad-mindedness.  I  had  dropped  into  a 
Boston  bookstore  on  a  quiet  morning;  Brooks 
presently  came  in  to'  browse  over  the  new  issues 
on  the  counters.  There  was  no  one  to  disturb 
us,  as  we  enjoyed  this  our  last  conversation  to- 
gether. He  spoke  of  Channing.  "  Do  you  know," 
said  he,  "  when  Dean  Stanley  came  over  here  I 
went  to  East  Boston  to  see  him  on  his  ship.     He 


262  The  Last  Leaf 

said  to  me  almost  at  once,  '  Where  is  Mount 
Auburn  ?'  Why,  said  I,  how  strange  that  the 
first  thing  you  inquire  about  as  you  arrive  is  a 
cemetery !  c  But  is  not  Channing  buried  there?  ' 
said  he.  I  told  him  I  did  not  know.  '  Well, 
he  is  and  I  want  to  go  at  once  to  the  grave  of 
Channing ! '  So  as  soon  as  we  could,"  con- 
tinued Phillips  Brooks,  "  wTe  took  a  carriage  and 
drove  to  Mount  Auburn  to  visit  the  grave  of 
Channing."  He  sympathised  fully  with  the  ad- 
miration felt  by  his  friend,  the  great  English 
churchman,  for  Channing,  and  gladly  did  him 
homage,  and  his  talk  flowed  on  in  channels  that 
showed  his  heart  was  warm  toward  men  of  all 
creeds  who  were  inspired  by  the  higher  life. 
This  noble  candour  of  mind  was  a  marked  ele- 
ment of  his  power,  and  has  endeared  his  memory 
among  scorces  of  sects  that  too  often  clash. 
How  sweetly  unifying  in  the  midst  of  a  jarring 
Christendom  has  been  the  spirit  of  Phillips 
Brooks ! 

After  this  I  saw  him  only  once.  It  was  at 
the  funeral  of  James  Russell  Lowell.  In  Apple- 
ton  Chapel  he  stood  in  his  robes,  gentle  and 
powerful,  as  he  read  the  burial  service.  When 
the  body  was  committed  to  the  grave  I  stood 
just  behind  him  and  heard  his  voice  in  the  last 
hallowed  sentences,  "  Dust  to  dust,  ashes  to 
ashes,  and  the  spirit  to  the  God  who  gave  it." 
I  never  heard  that  voice  again. 


CHAPTER  IX 

MEN  OF   SCIENCE 

IN  England,  in  the  fall  of  1870,  I  missed  an 
opportunity  to  see  the  great  scientific  men 
of  the  time.  Faraday  was  still  active,  and  in 
the  full  ripeness  of  his  fame.  Huxley,  Tyndall, 
Darwin,  Sir  Joseph  Hooker,  Joule,  Lyell,  Mur- 
ehison  were  in  the  midst  of  their  best  work,  and 
probably  all  or  most  of  them  were  present  at 
the  meeting  of  the  British  Association,  which 
took  place  that  year  somewhere  in  the  Vest  of 
England.  Miss  Frances  Power  Cobbe,  with 
whom  I  had  for  some  time  maintained  a  corre- 
spondence, growing  out  of  the  interest  I  felt  in 
her  Intuitive  Morals,  and  other  writings,  invited 
me  to  accompany  her  to  the  meeting,  at  which, 
introduced  by  her,  I  might  have  had  interesting 
interviews.  I  let  the  chance  go  by,  and  feel  to- 
day that  my  memory  stands  impoverished  in  that 
it  holds  no  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  lights, 
who  in  their  century  were  the  glory  of  their 
country  and  the  world. 

In  Germany  I  was  more  fortunate.     Arriving 
at  Heidelberg  at  a  time  before  its  high  prestige 

263 


264  THe  Last  Leaf 

had  suffered  much  diminution,  I  found  in  all 
the  four  Faculties  men  of  great  distinction.  One 
hears  that  in  the  stern  centralising  to  which 
since  1870  Germany  has  been  subjected  the  outer 
universities  have  suffered,  their  strength,  their 
able  teachers,  namely,  being  drawn  away  for  a 
brilliant  concentration  at  Berlin.  In  the  little 
university  town  of  those  days  students  and  pro- 
fessors rubbed  closely  and  great  men  were  some- 
times found  in  odd  environments.  Expressing 
once  a  desire  to  see  a  certain  venerable  theo- 
logian of  wide  fame,  I  was  told  he  was  sure  to 
be  found  on  such  and  such  evenings  in  a  well- 
known  bier  locale,  and  there  I  had  opportunity 
to  observe  him,  an  aged  and  withered  figure,  with 
a  proper  stein  of  the  amber  fluid  frothing  at  his 
side,  and  a  halo  from  an  active  pipe  enwreathing 
his  grey  hair,  as  he  joked  and  gossiped  familiarly 
with  his  fellow-loiterers  about  the  heavy  oak 
table.  At  another  time  I  was  among  surround- 
ings less  rough,  the  guest-room  of  a  club  of  the 
finer  world,  curtained  and  carpeted,  and  made 
attractive  with  pictures,  flowers,  and  music.  A 
company  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  sat  sipping 
Mai'ivein  and  Mark  grafler,  while  a  conjurer  en- 
tertained them  with  his  tricks.  During  one  of 
these,  desiring  a  confederate  from  the  lookers-on, 
he  approached  a  slender  and  refined-looking  man, 
who  was  following  the  necromancer's  proceed- 
ings with  as  much  interest  as  anybody.  The 
wizard's  air  of  deference,  and  the  respectful  looks 


IlircHoff  tHe  PHysicist  265 

of  the  company  led  me  to  infer  that  he  was  a 
man  above  the  common,  but  he  took  part  affably 
in  what  was  going  on,  helped  out  the  trick,  and 
laughed  and  wondered  with  the  rest  when  it 
succeeded.  I  presently  learned  to  my  surprise 
and  amusement  that  the  amiable  confederate  of 
the  conjurer  was  no  other  than  the  physicist 
Kirchoff,  then  in  fresh  and  brilliant  fame  as  the 
inventor  of  the  spectroscope  and  the  initiator 
of  the  scientific  method  known  as  spectrolysis. 
The  fact  has  long  been  known  that  a  prism 
properly  contrived  will  decompose  a  ray  of  white 
light  into  the  seven  primary  colours,  but  the 
broad  and  narrow  bands  running  across  the 
variegated  scheme  of  the  spectrum  had  either 
escaped  notice  or  been  neglected  as  phenomena 
not  significant.  Now  came,  however,  my  genial 
fellow-guest  of  the  Heidelberg  Club,  detecting 
that  the  lines  of  the  spectrum  were  one  thing 
or  another  according  to  the  substance  emitting 
the  light,  and  forthwith  the  world  became  aware 
of  a  discovery  of  vast  moment.  The  light  of  the 
sun,  and  of  the  stars  more  distant  than  the  sun, 
could  be  analysed  or  spectrolised,  and  a  certain 
knowledge  was  shed  of  what  was  burning  there 
in  the  immensely  distant  spaces.  We  can  know 
what  constitutes  a  star  as  unerringly  as  we 
know  the  constituents  of  the  earth.  Still  more, 
among  the  supposed  elements  to  which  pains- 
taking chemists  had  reduced  composite  matter, 
many  were  found  by  the  all-discerning  prism  to 


266  The  Last  Leaf 

be  not  ultimate,  but  themselves  susceptible  of 
subtler  division.  In  fact  here  was  a  method  of 
chemical  and  physical  analysis,  much  more 
powerful,  and  also  more  delicate,  than  had  be- 
fore been  known,  and  the  idea  of  the  scientists 
as  to  the  make-up  of  the  material  universe  deep- 
ened and  widened  wondrously.  I  sat  often 
among  the  crowd  of  students  in  KirchoflPs  lec- 
ture-room, watching  the  play  of  his  delicate 
features  as  he  unravelled  mysteries  which  till 
he  showed  the  way  were  a  mere  hopeless  knot. 
Near  him  as  he  spoke,  on  a  table  were  the  wand, 
the  rings,  the  vials,  above  all  a  spectroscope  with 
its  prisms,  the  apparatus  with  which  the  ma- 
gician solved  the  universe.  Once,  as  I  stood 
near  him,  he  indicated  in  a  polite  sentence,  with 
a  gesture  toward  the  table,  that  I  was  free  to 
use  these  appliances.  In  the  depth  of  my  un- 
knowledge  I  felt  I  could  not  claim  to  be  even 
a  tyro,  and  was  duly  abashed  beneath  the  pene- 
trating eye.  But  it  is  interesting  to  think  that 
for  a  moment  once  I  held  the  attention  of  so 
potent  a  Prospero. 

In  those  days  the  name  of  Kirchoff  was 
coupled  always  with  that  of  an  associate,  the 
chemist  Bunsen,  when  there  was  mention  of 
spectrum-analysis;  and  in  my  time  at  Heidel- 
berg, Bunsen  was  at  hand  and  I  became  as 
familiar  with  his  figure  as  with  Kirchoff.  In 
frame  Bunsen  was  of  the  burly  burgomaster  type 
not  rare  among  the  Teutons,  and  as  I  saw  him 


Bunsen  tKe  CHemist  267 

in  his  laboratory  to  which  I  sometimes  gained 
access  through  students  of  his,  he  moved  about 
in  some  kind  of  informal  schlafrock  or  working 
dress  of  ample  dimensions,  with  his  large  head 
crowned  by  a  peculiar  cap.  On  the  tables  within 
the  spaces  flickered  numerously  the  "  Bunsen 
burners,"  his  invention,  and  it  was  easy  to  fancy 
as  one  saw  him,  surrounded  by  the  large  com- 
pany of  reverent  disciples,  that  you  were  in  the 
presence  of  the  hierophant  of  some  abstruse  and 
mysterious  cult,  in  whose  honour  waved  the 
many  lambent  flames.  I  think  he  was  unmar- 
ried, without  domestic  ties,  and  lived  almost 
night  and  day  among  his  crucibles  and  retorts, 
devoted  to  his  science  and  pupils  toward  whom 
he  showed  a  regard  almost  fatherly.  In  his  lec- 
ture-room, in  more  formal  dress  he  was  less  pic- 
turesque, but  still  a  man  to  arouse  deep  interest. 
He  was  in  the  front  rank  of  the  chemists  of  all 
time,  and  I  suppose  had  equal  merit  with  Kir- 
choff  in  the  momentous  discovery  in  which  their 
names  are  linked. 

There  was,  however,  at  this  time  in  Heidel- 
berg a  scientist  probably  of  greater  prestige  than 
even  these,  whose  contemporary  influence  was 
more  dominant,  and  whose  repute  is  now,  and 
likely  to  be  hereafter  more  prevailing.  In  my 
walks  in  a  certain  quiet  street,  I  sometimes  met 
a  man  who  made  an  unusual  impression  of  dig- 
nity and  power.  He  had  the  bearing  of  a  leader 
of  men  in  whatever  sphere  he  might  move,  mas- 


268  The  Last  Leaf 

sive  and  well-statured,  his  dress  not  obtrusive 
but  carefully  appointed,  with  an  eye  and  face 
to  command.  His  manner  was  courteous,  not 
domineering,  and  I  wondered  who  the  able,  high- 
bred gentleman  might  be,  for  he  carried  all  that 
in  his  air  as  he  passed  along  the  street.  It  was 
the  illustrious  Helmholtz,  then  in  his  best  years, 
with  great  achievements  behind  him  and  before. 
His  researches  in  many  fields  were  profound  and 
far  extending.  I  suppose  his  genius  was  at  its 
best  when  dealing  with  the  pervasive  imponder- 
able ether  that  extends  out  from  the  earth  into 
the  vast  planetary  spaces  in  whose  vibrations 
are  conditioned  the  phenomena  of  light.  No 
subject  of  investigation  can  be  more  elusive. 
The  mind  that  could  grapple  with  this  and  arrive 
at  the  secrets  and  laws  of  the  subtle  medium 
through  which  the  human  eye  receives  impres- 
sion is  indeed  worthy  of  our  veneration.  Prob- 
ably, excepting  Humboldt,  no  German  scientist 
in  these  later  centuries  has  reached  such  emi- 
nence. The  fields  of  the  two  men  were  widely 
different.  The  one  we  know  best  as  the  scientific 
traveller,  roaming  the  earth  over,  and  reducing 
to  ordered  knowledge  what  can  be  perceived  of 
its  fauna  and  flora,  of  the  strata  that  underlie 
it,  the  oceans  that  toss  upon  it,  the  atmosphere 
that  surrounds  it.  The  other  roved  not  widely, 
but  keeping  to  his  lenses  and  calculations,  pene- 
trated perhaps  more  profoundly.  Helmholtz,  a 
well-born  youth,  began  his  career  as  a  surgeon 


HelmKoltz  269 

in  the  Prussian  army,  and  his  service  there,  no 
doubt,  contributed  to  the  manly  carriage  for 
which  he  was  conspicuous.  He  married  a  lady 
of  a  noble  house  of  Wuertemberg,  and  moved  in 
an  environment  conducive  to  courtly  manners. 
Heidelberg,  like  the  German  universities  in  gen- 
eral, well  understood  that  ability  in  its  teachers, 
and  not  a  pompous  architectural  display,  makes 
a  great  institution.  Its  buildings  were  scattered 
and  unpretending.  Helmholtz  had  a  lecture- 
room  and  laboratory  apart,  in  a  structure 
modern  and  graceful,  but  modest  in  its  appeal. 
Here  he  discoursed  to  reverent  throngs  in  tones 
never  loud  or  confident.  It  is  for  wiseacres  and 
charlatans  to  declaim  and  domineer.  The  mas- 
ters are  deferential  in  the  presence  of  the  sub- 
limities and  of  the  intelligences  they  are  striving 
to  enlighten. 

In  Germany  I  saw  the  great  lights  of  science 
from  afar,  coming  into  relations  of  intimacy  only 
with  one  or  two  privat-docents,  young  men  strug- 
gling precariously  for  a  foothold.  One  such 
striver  I  came  to  know  well,  a  young  man  gifted 
but  physically  crippled,  who,  being  anxious  to 
get  up  his  English,  as  I  was  to  get  up  my  Ger- 
man, entered  with  me  into  an  arrangement  to 
converse  in  these  alternately.  We  were  about  on 
a  par  in  our  knowledge  or  ignorance  of  the  speech 
not  native  to  us,  and  helped  each  other  merrily 
out  of  the  pitfalls  into  which  we  stumbled,  ac- 
cording as  English  or  German  ruled  the  time. 


270  THe  Last  Leaf 

I  was  aghast  to  find  that  I  had  been  telling 
my  new  German  acquaintances  that  while  a 
married  man,  I  had  deserted  and  cast  off  my 
wife  and  little  boy  in  America,  when  I  meant 
to  say  only  that  I  had  left  them  behind  during 
my  temporary  sojourn.  A  treacherous  insepa- 
rable prefix  had  imparted  to  my  "  leaving  them  " 
an  unlooked-for  emphasis.  The  laugh  for  the 
moment  was  on  me,  but  only  for  the  moment. 
A  little  later  Knopff  was  telling  me  of  the  old 
manuscripts  in  the  library  illuminated  gorge- 
ously by  "de  pious  and  skilful  monkeys  of  de 
Middle  Ages."  He  was  a  bright  fellow,  and  I 
have  hoped  I  might  encounter  his  name  in  some 
honourable  connection.  If  he  survived  it  was 
as  one  of  the  unbekannt,  an  affix  very  dreadful 
to  young  aspirants  for  university  honours. 

As  regards  the  men  who,  during  the  past 
seventy-five  years  have  so  greatly  widened  our 
scientific  knowledge,  I  have  had  contact  with 
those  of  Germany  only  for  brief  periods,  and  in 
the  outer  circle.  As  to  their  American  brethren, 
fate  has  been  more  kind  to  me.  I  have  sat  as 
a  pupil  at  the  feet  of  the  most  eminent,  and 
with  some  I  have  stood  in  the  bond  of  friendship. 

Divinity  Hall,  at  Harvard  University,  has 
always  had  a  pleasant  seclusion.  Near  the  end 
of  its  long,  well-shaded  avenue,  it  had  in  the 
rear  the  fine  trees  of  Norton's  Woods,  and  fifty 
years  ago  pleasant  fields  stretching  before.  Of 
late  the  Ampelopsis  has  taken  it  into  its  especial 


Divinity  Hall  Sixty  Years  Ag'o     271 

cherishing,  draping  it  with  a  close  green  luxuri- 
ance that  can  scarcely  be  matched  elsewhere. 
Moreover  it  is  dominated  by  the  lordly  pile  of 
the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology.  "  Whence 
and  what  art  thou,  execrable  shape !  "  a  theologue 
once  exclaimed  as  the  walls  were  rising,  feeling 
that  there  must  always  be  a  battle  between  what 
the  old  Hall  stood  for  and  the  new  building  was 
to  foster.  But  the  structures  have  gone  on  in 
harmony,  and  many  a  devotee  of  science  has  had 
hospitable  welcome  in  the  quarters  intended  for 
the  recruits  of  what  so  many  suppose  to  be  the 
opposing  camp.  There  was  a  notable  case  of 
this  kind  in  my  own  time. 

One  pleasant  afternoon  a  group  of  "  divini- 
ties "  (Ye  gods,  that  that  should  have  been  our 
title  in  the  nomenclature  of  the  University!) 
were  chatting  under  one  of  the  western  porches. 
Talk  turned  upon  an  instructor,  whose  hand 
upon  our  essays  was  felt  to  be  soft  rather  than 
critical,  and  who  was,  therefore,  set  low.  "By 
Holy  Scripture,"  broke  out  one,  "a  soft  hand 
is  a  good  thing.  A  soft  hand,  sir,  turneth  away 
wrath."  The  window  close  by  opened  into  the 
room  of  Simon  Newconib,  a  youth  who  had  no 
part  in  our  studies,  but  of  whom  we  made  a 
chum.  In  those  days  he  could  laugh  at  such  a 
joke  as  it  blew  in  at  his  window  with  the 
thistle-down, — indeed  was  capable  of  such  things 
himself. 

It  is  a  bit  odd  that  as  I  come  to  write  of  him, 


272  The  Last  Leaf 

this  small  witticism  of  half  a  century  back  should 
thrust  itself  obstinately  into  my  memory,  but 
after  all  it  may  not  be  out  of  place.  The  im- 
pression of  the  greatness  of  a  mountain  we  get 
powerfully  if  the  eye  can  measure  it  from  the 
waif  of  seaweed  at  low  tide  up  to  the  snow-cap 
of  the  summit.  At  this  and  similar  jokes  the 
boy  Simon  Newcomb  connived,  as  he  moved  in 
our  crowd.  They  were  the  waifs  at  low  tide 
from  which  his  towering  mind  rose  to  the  meas- 
uring of  the  courses  of  the  stars.  He  came 
among  us  as  a  student  of  the  Lawrence  scientific 
school,  muscular  and  heavy-shouldered  from 
work  on  shore  and  at  the  oar  in  Nova  Scotia. 
Though  not  slovenly,  he  was  the  reverse  of  trim. 
His  rather  outlandish  clothes,  pressed  once  for 
all  when  they  left  the  shop  of  the  provincial 
tailor,  held  his  sturdy  elbows  and  knees  in  bags 
moulded  accurately  to  the  capacious  joints.  His 
hair  hung  rebelliously,  and  his  nascent  beard 
showed  an  untrained  hand  at  the  razor.  But 
his  brow  was  broad,  his  eye  clear  and  intelli- 
gent, and  he  was  a  man  to  be  reckoned  with. 
He  was  barely  of  age,  but  already  a  computer 
in  the  Nautical  Almanac  office,  then  located  at 
Cambridge,  and  we  well  knew  work  of  that  sort 
required  brains  of  the  best.  Since  Simon  New- 
comb's  death  an  interesting  story  has  been  told 
about  his  heredity.  His  strong-brained  father, 
measuring  his  own  qualities  with  rigid  introspec- 
tion, discovering  where  he  was  weak  and  where 


Simon  Newcomb's  Parentage       273 

capable,  resolved  that  whatever  wife  he  chose 
should  supplement  in  her  personality  the  points 
as  to  which  he  lacked.  He  would  father  sons 
and  daughters  who  should  come  into  the  world 
well  appointed;  in  particular  he  looked  toward 
offspring  who  should  possess  high  scientific  gifts. 
With  this  mind  he  set  out  on  his  courting, 
and  steering  clear  of  vain  entanglements  with 
rather  preternatural  coolness,  at  last  in  a  remote 
village,  satisfied  himself  that  he  had  found  his 
complement.  He  permitted  his  docile  heart  to 
fall  in  love,  and  in  due  course  there  was  born 
into  the  world  a  great  man.  The  wooing  has 
a  humorous  aspect, — this  steering  of  unruly 
Hymen!  The  calculated  result,  however,  did 
not  fail  of  appearance,  and  perhaps  the  world 
might  profit  from  such  an  example.  I  was 
strongly  drawn  toward  Simon  Newcomb  by  his 
unlikeness  to  myself.  I  was  town-bred  and  he 
full  of  strength  gained  in  the  fields  and  along 
the  beach.  My  own  disinclination  for  mathematics 
was  marked,  but  I  had  a  vast  admiration  for 
a  man  to  whom  its  processes  were  easy.  We 
became  very  good  friends.  He  was  a  genial  fel- 
low, capable  as  I  have  said  of  taking  or  making 
a  joke,  yet  his  moods  were  prevailingly  serious, 
and  be  had  already  hitched  his  waggon  to  a 
star.  Abnormally  purposeful  perhaps,  a  crop- 
ping out  no  doubt  of  heredity,  he  had  set  a  high 
mark  for  himself  and  was  already  striving  to- 
ward it.  In  an  autobiographical  fragment  he 
18 


274N  The  Last  Leaf 

says,  referring  to  his  early  surrender  of  his 
powers  to  high  mathematical  work : 

To  this  work  I  was  especially  attracted,  because  its 
preparation  seemed  to  me  to  embody  the  highest 
intellectual  power  to  which  man  has  ever  attained. 
The  matter  used  to  present  itself  to  my  mind  some- 
what in  this  way.  .  .  .  There  are  tens  of  thousands 
of  men  who  could  be  successful  in  all  the  ordinary 
walks  of  life.  Thousands  who  could  gain  wealth, 
hundreds  who  could  wield  empires,  for  one  who 
could  take  up  the  astronomical  problems  with  any 
hope  of  success.  The  men  who  have  done  it  are 
therefore  in  intellect  the  select  few  of  the  human 
race,  an  aristocracy  ranking  above  all  others  in  the 
scale  of  being.  The  astronomical  ephemeris  is  the 
last  practical  outcome  of  their  productive  genius. 

In  pursuing  their  lives  men  no  doubt  follow 
the  line  of  least  resistance,  and  Simon  Newcomb 
here  we  may  be  sure  was  no  exception ;  thus  he 
chose  to  deal  in  his  work  with  the  heaviest  and 
most  perplexing  problems  with  which  the  human 
intellect  can  engage.  I  do  not  attempt  to  de- 
scribe or  estimate  what  he  achieved.  Only  a 
few  select  minds  in  his  generation  were  capable 
of  that.  At  his  death  the  tributes  of  those  who 
had  a  right  to  speak  were  unmeasured.  Perhaps 
no  human  mind  ever  attacked  more  boldly  the 
uttermost  difficulties,  and  indeed  have  been  more 
successful  in  the  wrestle.  He  was  set  by  the 
side    of    Hipparchus,    of    Galileo,    Copernicus, 


Newcomb's  Last  Year  275 

Kepler,  and  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  In  a  class  thus 
lofty,  his  scientific  fellows  have  judged  that  he 
had  a  title  to  stand.  In  their  high  strivings  he 
was  equally  zealous,  and  his  achievement  was 
comparable  with  theirs.  Nevertheless,  had  his 
disposition  inclined  him,  there  were  many  other 
paths  into  which  he  might  have  struck  with  suc- 
cess. His  versatility  was  marked  and  he  did 
try  his  hand  at  various  tasks,  at  finance,  po- 
litical economy,  belles-lettres.  James  Bryce, 
who  knew  him  well,  is  said  to  have  seen  in  him 
the  stuff  for  a  great  man-of-affairs,  a  leader  of 
armies  or  a  captain  of  industry.  His  excur- 
sions, however,  into  such  fields,  though  some- 
times noteworthy  in  result,  were  transient  and 
more  or  less  half-hearted.  His  allegiance,  given 
so  early  to  the  sublimest  of  pursuits,  held  him 
to  the  end.  The  Government  of  the  United 
States  placed  him  in  its  highest  scientific  posi- 
tion, at  the  head  of  the  Naval  Observatory,  and 
his  serious  work  from  first  to  last  was  in  the 
solemn  labyrinths  where  the  stars  cross  and  re- 
cross,  and  here  he  was  one  of  the  most  master- 
ful of  master-minds. 

It  was  full  fifty  years  since  Simon  Newcomb 
and  I  were  boys  together  in  Divinity  Hall.  No 
letter  or  message  had  ever  passed  between  us.  I 
had  followed  the  course  of  his  fame,  and  felt 
happy  that  I  had  once  known  him.  Returning  to 
my  lodgings,  during  a  sojourn  in  Washington,  I 
was  told  I  had  had  a  visitor,  a  man  well  on  in 


276  THe  Last  Leaf 

years,  plain  in  attire,  and  rugged-faced.  The  card 
he  left  bore  the  name  "  Simon  Newcomb."  I 
sought  him  out  at  once,  and  have  rarely  felt  more 
honoured  than  that  my  old  friend,  learning 
casually  of  my  whereabouts,  had  felt  the  impulse 
to  find  me  and  renew  our  former  intercourse. 
After  a  half-century  the  boy  was  still  discern- 
ible in  the  aging  man.  The  big  brow  remained 
and  the  keen  and  thoughtful  eye.  His  dress  and 
manner  were  simple,  as  of  old.  He  was  entitled 
to  wear  the  insignia  of  a  rear-admiral,  and  had 
long  lived  in  refined  surroundings  which  might 
have  made  him  fastidious.  In  look  and  bearing, 
however,  he  was  the  hearty,  friendly  man  of  the 
Nova  Scotia  coast,  careless  of  frills  and  fine 
manners. 

It  was  a  red-letter  day  for  me  when  Simon 
Newcomb  met  me  at  the  door  of  the  Cosmos 
Club,  of  which  he  was  then  president,  and  pre- 
sented me  as  his  guest  to  one  and  another  of  the 
select  company  of  men  who  formed  its  member- 
ship. He  moved  among  them  as  unostentatious 
and  simple-mannered  as  he  had  been  as  a  boy, 
with  a  catholic  interest  in  all  the  varying  topics 
which  held  the  sympathies  of  the  crowd,  and 
able  well  to  hold  his  own  whatever  might  be 
the  field  of  the  conversation.  Bishop,  poet, 
scientist,  historian,  he  had  common  ground  with 
them  all.  I  sat  with  him  in  his  study,  among 
heaped-up  papers  inscribed  with  the  most  ab- 
struse and  intricate  calculations.      It  did  not 


Asa  Gray  277 

affect  the  warmth  of  his  welcome  that  I  had  no 
partnership  with  him  in  these  difficult  pursuits. 
He  was  broad  enough  to  take  cognizance,  too, 
of  the  things  I  cared  for.  It  was  hard  to  feel 
that  the  man  there  hitting  off  aptly  a  prominent 
personality  or  historic  event  mooted  in  our  little 
human  world  was  at  the  same  time  in  the 
planetary  confidences,  and  that  when  you  shook 
his  hand  at  parting,  he  would  turn  to  interpreting 
the  sweet  influences  of  the  Pleiades  and  the  mys- 
teries of  the  bands  that  hold  Orion.  Coming 
home  from  an  interview  with  Simon  Newcomb, 
late  at  night  I  paused  on  the  terrace  at  the  west 
front  of  the  Capitol  and  looked  back  upon  the 
heavens  widely  stretching  above  the  city.  The 
stars  glittered  cold,  far,  and  silent,  but  I  had 
been  with  a  man  who  in  a  sense  walked  and 
talked  with  them  and  found  them  sympathetic. 
In  the  power  of  pure  intellect  I  felt  I  had  never 
known  a  greater  man. 

On  an  autumn  day  in  the  early  fifties,  as  I 
loitered  in  the  green-house  of  the  Botanic  Garden 
at  Cambridge,  a  lithe  bare-headed  man,  in  rough 
brown  attire,  came  quickly  stepping  in  from  the 
flower-beds  outside.  He  was  in  his  fullest  vigour, 
his  hair  more  inclined  to  stand  erect  than  to 
lie  smooth,  his  dark  eyes  full  of  animation.  It 
was  a  noticeably  vivid  and  alert  personality,  and 
as  he  tossed  on  to  a  working-table  a  heavy  sheaf 
of  long-stemmed  plants,  wet  from  a  recent  shower 
and  bent  over  them  in  sharp  scrutiny,  I  knew 


278  The  Last  Leaf 

I  was  in  the  presence  of  Asa  Gray,  the  first  of 
American  botanists.  He  had  come  as  a  boy 
from  a  remote  rural  district,  and  with  few  ad- 
vantages, following  the  bent  of  a  marked  scien- 
tific genius,  he  had  won  for  himself  before 
reaching  middle  life  a  leading  place.  I  was 
soon  to  know  him  better,  for  it  was  my  fortunate 
lot  to  be  one  in  the  crowd  of  juniors  which  for 
a  term  lined  up  before  him  once  a  week  or  so 
in  Holden  Chapel.  The  small  peculiarities  of 
great  men  have  an  interest,  and  the  function  I 
am  seeking  now  to  fulfil  is  to  make  sharp  the 
ordinary  presentment  of  the  eminent  characters 
I  touch.  I  recall  of  Asa  Gray,  that  with  the 
class,  he  sat  at  his  desk  behind  a  substantial 
rail,  which  fenced  him  in  from  the  boys  in  the 
front  row,  his  seat  a  little  raised  and  the  notes 
before  him  made  plain  by  a  narrow  light-well, 
which  in  the  Holden  of  those  days  opened  over 
the  teacher's  head  to  a  sky-light  in  the  roof. 
Gray's  utterance  was  rather  hesitant.  He  would 
catch  for  his  word  often,  reiterating  meanwhile 
the  article,  "  the-a,  the-a,  the-a,"  his  gaze  mean- 
while fixed  upon  the  sky-light,  and  a  nervously 
gyrating  forefinger  raised  high  and  brightly 
illuminated.  The  thought  suggested  was  that  he 
had  a  prompter  on  the  roof  to  whom  he  was 
distressfully  appealing  to  supply  the  true  phrase. 
For  Professor  Gray  the  truth  was  in  the  top 
rather  than  the  bottom  of  the  well.  Though 
sometimes  long  in  coming  it  was  the  right  thing 


Gray  in  tHe  Class  Room  279 

when  it  came  and  clothed  his  thought  properly. 
Sizing  up  the  new  professor,  in  our  first  days 
with  him,  as  boys  will  do,  some  unconscionable 
dogs  in  our  front  row,  assuming  an  attitude 
which  Abraham  Lincoln  afterward  made  classic, 
settled  back  in  their  chairs  and  rested  their  feet 
on  the  rail  in  front  in  a  position  higher  than  their 
heads.  The  professor,  withdrawing  his  gaze  sud- 
denly from  the  sky-light,  found  himself  con- 
fronted not  by  expectant  faces  but  by  a  row  of 
battered  and  muddy  boot-soles.  His  face  fell; 
his  whirling  forefinger,  ceasing  to  gyrate,  tilted 
like  a  lance  in  rest  at  the  obnoxious  cowhide 
parapet.  "  Those  boots,  young  gentlemen,  ah, 
those  boots  " ;  he  ejaculated  forlornly,  and  the 
boots  came  down  with  mutinous  clatter.  Pro- 
fessor Gray  soon  established  himself  as  a  prime 
favourite  among  our  lazy  men,  of  whom  there 
were  too  many.  In  calling  us  up  he  began  with 
the  A's,  following  down  the  class  in  alphabetic 
regularity.  While  Brooks  was  reciting,  it  was 
easy  for  Brown,  sitting  next,  to  open  his  book, 
and  calculating  narrowly  the  parallax,  to  hold 
it  concealed  below  the  rail,  while  he  diligently 
conned  the  page  following.  In  his  turn  he  rose 
well-primed,  and  spouted  glibly,  and  so  on  down 
the  class.  Rumour  went  that  our  childlike  pro- 
fessor declared  he  had  never  known  anything 
like  it.  Nearly  every  man  got  the  perfect  mark. 
This  was  a  fiction.  The  professor's  idea  was 
that  we  were  old  enough  to  know  what  was  good 


280  The  Last  Leaf 

for  us,  and  ought  to  be  above  childish  negligence 
and  tricks.  If  some  men  saw  no  use  in  botany, 
he  would  not  waste  time  in  beating  it  into  them. 
He  left  the  blind  and  the  sluggards  in  their 
wilful  ignorance,  but  had  generously  helpful 
hands  for  all  wiser  ones  who  saw  the  value  of 
trimming  their  lamps.  All  such  he  would  take 
to  his  garden  personally  to  direct  and  inspire, 
and  our  better  men  felt  all  through  their  lives 
how  much  that  meant.  In  general  we  soon  came 
to  feel  and  appreciate  a  most  kindly  influence  as 
proceeding  from  him.  I  think  we  had  no  teacher 
whom  we  at  the  last  regarded  more  affection- 
ately or  approached  more  closely;  and  many  an 
indolent  one  was  won  to  warm  interest  and 
diligence. 

Those  were  the  days  when  the  older  science 
wTas  rocking  to  its  foundations  in  a  re-shaping 
at  the  hands  of  new  and  brilliant  men.  Fara- 
day, we  might  have  heard  of,  but  Darwin,  Hux- 
ley, Tyndall,  and  the  rest,  were  names  all 
unknown,  as  were  also  the  revolutionary  ideas, 
the  conservation  and  correlation  of  forces,  the 
substitution  of  evolution  in  the  scheme  of  the 
universe  for  the  plan  of  special  creations.  Here 
all  unconsciously  we  were  in  contact  with  a  man 
who  was  in  the  thick  of  the  new  scientific  move- 
ment, the  friend  and  partner  in  their  strivings 
of  the  daring  new  interpreters  of  the  ways  of 
God  to  men,  and  who  was  to  have  recognition 
as  a  specially  effective  apostle  of  the  new  dis- 


The  Light  of  Other  Days  281 

pensation.  Abraham  himself  entertained  his 
angel  no  more  unawares  than  we,  but  gleams 
of  fine  radiance  sometimes  broke  through  even 
to  our  purblind  perceptions.  Once  unfurling  a 
quite  too  long  and  heedless  pair  of  ears  to  what 
I  supposed  would  be  a  dull  technical  deliver- 
ance, I  found  myself  suddenly  caught  and  won- 
derfully stimulated. 

What  [said  Asa  Gray]  is  the  bright  flame  and  vivid 
heat  that  is  set  free  on  your  hearth  when  you  kindle 
your  piles  of  wood?  It  is  the  sunlight  and  sun- 
heat  of  a  century  ago.  The  beams  were  caught  in 
the  wilderness  by  the  leaves  of  the  trees;  they  were 
absorbed  and  stored  in  the  trunks,  and  the  light 
and  heat  day  by  day  through  many  years  was  thus 
heaped  up.  When  now  combustion  begins,  it  is 
simply  a  setting  free  of  the  radiance  that  was  shed 
upon  the  forest  many  years  ago.  The  noons  of  a 
time  long  past  are  making  you  comfortable  in  the 
wintry  storm  of  the  present.  So  when  the  an- 
thracite glows  in  your  grate,  you  feel  the  veritable 
sunbeams  that  were  emitted  aeons  upon  aeons  ago 
upon  the  primeval  world.  It  is  the  very  light  that 
was  drunk  in  by  those  most  ancient  forests.  It  was 
held  fast  in  the  trunks,  and  when  tbose  faithful 
reservoirs  in  their  turn  were  crushed  and  com- 
mingled and  drenched  until  at  last  they  lay  under 
the  earth  as  the  coal  beds,  they  nevertheless  held 
fast  this  treasure.  When  you  scratch  your  match 
you  but  unlock  the  hoard,  and  the  sunlight  of 
primeval  days,  diminished  by  no  particle,  glows  and 
warms  once  more. 


282  The  Last  Leaf 

This  in  substance  was  Asa  Gray's  introduction, 
from  which  he  went  on  to  explain  that  in  the 
progress  of  the  universe  no  faintest  throb  of 
energy  is  lost.  It  might  pass  from  form  to 
form;  heat  might  appear  as  a  mode  of  motion, 
of  weight,  of  elasticity,  but  no  smallest  unit 
perished.  So  the  lecture  flowed  on  into  a  lumin- 
ous and  comprehensive  exposition  of  the  great 
doctrine  of  the  conservation  and  correlation  of 
force.  It  was  Asa  Gray  who  brought  us  into 
touch  with  this  new  science  just  then  announc- 
ing itself  to  the  world.  He  was  a  co-worker  and 
a  compeer  of  the  pioneers  who  at  that  moment 
were  breaking  a  way  for  it,  and  it  was  our 
privilege  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  a  master. 

In  later  years  his  fame  spread  wide.  He  was 
recognised  as  the  leader  in  America  in  his  special 
field,  and  in  a  class  with  the  best  men  of  foreign 
lands.  He  was  long  a  correspondent  and  special 
friend  of  Darwin,  to  the  spread  of  whose  doc- 
trines he  rendered  great  service.  The  fact  that 
religiously  he  adhered  to  the  time-honoured 
evangelical  tenets  helped  much  in  the  war  which 
the  new  science  was  forced  to  wage  with  the 
odium  theologicum.  The  new  science,  it  must 
be  said,  perhaps  has  hardly  yet  made  sure  its 
footing.  Are  Natural  Selection  and  Survival  of 
the  Fittest  clews  with  which  we  can  face  con- 
fidently the  workings  of  the  "  roaring-gloom  that 
weaves  for  God  the  garment  we  see  him  by  "? 
But  no  doctrine  is  better  accepted  than  that  in 


THe  Coming  of  Lo\iis  Agassiz     283 

some  way  Evolution  and  not  Special  Creations 
is  the  scheme  of  the  world.  Toward  this  accept- 
ance Asa  Gray  helped  powerfully,  a  champion 
always  bold,  humane,  broad-minded.  We  used 
to  laugh  about  the  prompter  he  seemed  to  have 
at  the  top  of  the  light-well  in  the  sky-light  in 
Holden  Chapel.  In  a  deeper  sense  than  we 
knew  the  good  man  received  his  prompting  from 
the  clear  upper  sky. 

A  naturalist  who  sixty  years  ago  had,  and 
perhaps  still  has,  a  much  wider  fame  than  Asa 
Gray  was  Louis  Agassiz.  He  had  come  a  few 
years  before  from  Europe,  a  man  in  his  prime, 
of  great  fame.  He  was  strikingly  handsome, 
with  a  dome-like  head  under  flowing  black  locks, 
large  dark,  mobile  eyes  set  in  features  strong 
and  comely,  and  with  a  well-proportioned  stal- 
wart frame.  At  the  moment  his  prestige  was 
greater,  perhaps,  than  that  of  any  other  Harvard 
professor.  His  knowledge  seemed  almost  bound- 
less. His  glacial  theory  had  put  him  among  the 
geological  chiefs,  and  as  to  animated  nature  he 
had  ordered  and  systematised,  from  the  lowest 
plant-forms  up  to  the  crown  of  creation,  the 
human  being.  Abroad  we  knew  he  was  held  to 
be  an  adept  in  the  most  difficult  fields  and  now 
in  his  new  environment  he  was  pushing  his  in- 
vestigations with  passionate  zeal.  But  the  boys 
found  in  him  points  on  which  a  laugh  could  be 
hung.  As  he  strode  homeward  from  his  walks 
in   the  outer   fields   or  marshes,   we   eyed  him 


284  Tke  Last  Leaf 

gingerly,  for  who  could  tell  what  he  might  have 
in  his  pockets?  Turtles,  tadpoles,  snakes,  any 
old  monster  might  be  there,  and  queer  stories 
prevailed  of  the  menagerie  which,  hung  up,  and 
forgotten  in  the  professor's  dressing-room,  crept 
out  and  sought  asylum  in  the  beds,  shoes,  and 
hats  of  the  household.  Before  the  resulting  con- 
sternation, masculine  and  feminine,  he  was  al- 
ways apologetic.  He  was  on  the  friendliest  terms 
with  things  ill-reputed,  even  abhorrent,  and  could 
not  understand  the  qualms  of  the  delicate.  He 
was  said  to  have  held  up  once,  in  all  innocence, 
before  a  class  of  school-girls  a  wriggling  snake. 
The  shrieks  and  confusion  brought  him  to  a  sense 
of  what  he  had  done.  He  apologised  elaborately, 
the  foreign  peculiarity  he  never  lost  running 
through  his  confusion.  "  Poor  girls,  I  vill  not 
do  it  again.  Next  time  I  vill  bring  in  a  nice,  clean 
leetle  feesh."  Agassiz  took  no  pleasure  in  shock- 
ing his  class;  on  the  contrary  he  was  most  anx- 
ious to  engage  and  hold  them.  So  too,  if  his 
audience  was  made  up  from  people  of  the  sim- 
plest. In  fact,  for  each  he  exerted  his  powers 
as  generously  as  when  addressing  a  company  of 
savants.  He  always  kindled  as  he  spoke,  and 
with  a  marvellous  magnetism  communicated  his 
glow  to  those  who  listened.  I  have  seen  him 
stand  before  his  class  holding  in  his  hand  the 
claw  of  a  crustacean.  In  his  earnestness  it 
seemed  to  be  for  him  the  centre  of  the  creation, 
and  he  made  us  all  share  his  belief.     Indeed,  he 


Louis  Agfassiz  before  an  Audience   285 

convinced  us.  Running  back  from  it  in  an  al- 
most infinite  series  was  the  many-ordered  life 
adhering  at  last  and  scarcely  distinguishable 
from  the  inorganic  matter  to  which  it  clung. 
Forward  from  it  again  ran  the  series  not  less 
long  and  complicated  which  fulfilled  itself  at 
last  in  the  brain  and  soul  of  man.  What  he 
held  in  his  hand  was  a  central  link.  His  colour 
came  and  went,  his  eye  danced  and  his  tones 
grew  deep  and  tremulous,  as  he  dwelt  on  the 
illimitable  chain  of  being.  With  a  few  strokes 
on  the  blackboard,  he  presented  graphically  the 
most  intricate  variations.  He  felt  the  sublimity 
of  what  he  was  contemplating,  and  we  glowed 
with  him  from  the  contagion  of  his  fervour.  I 
have  never  heard  his  equal  as  an  expounder  of 
the  deep  things  of  nature.  He  gloried  in  the 
exercise  of  his  power,  though  hampered  by  pov- 
erty. "  I  have  no  time  to  make  money,"  he  cried. 
He  sought  no  title  but  that  of  teacher.  To  do 
anything  else  was  only  to  misuse  his  gift.  In 
his  desk  he  was  an  inspirer,  but  hardly  more  so 
than  in  private  talk.  I  recall  walks  we  took  with 
him  to  study  natural  objects  and  especially  the 
striated  rocks,  which,  as  he  had  detected,  bore 
plain  evidence  that  the  configuration  of  the  re- 
gion had  been  shaped  by  glaciers.  He  was 
charmingly  affable,  encouraging  our  questions, 
and  unwearied  in  his  demonstration.  "  Pro- 
fessor," I  said  once,  "  you  teach  us  that  in  crea- 
tion things  rise  from  high  to  higher  in  the  vast 


286  The  Last  Leaf 

series  until  at  last  we  come  to  man.  Why  stop 
with  man?  why  not  conclude  that  as  man  sur- 
passes what  went  before,  so  he  in  turn  will  be 
surpassed  and  supplanted  by  a  being  still  su- 
perior;— and  so  on  and  on?"  I  well  recall  the 
solemnity  of  his  face  as  he  replied  that  I  was 
touching  upon  the  deepest  things,  not  to  be  dealt 
with  in  an  afternoon  ramble.  He  would  only 
say  then  that  there  could  be  nothing  higher  than 
a  man  with  his  spirit. 

Whether  Agassiz  wras  as  broad-minded  as  he 
was  high-minded  may  be  argued.  The  story  ran 
that  when  the  foundations  of  the  Museum  of 
Comparative  Zoology  were  going  on  in  Divinity 
Avenue,  a  theological  professor  encountering  the 
scientist  among  the  shadows  the  latter  was  in- 
vading, courteously  bade  him  welcome.  He 
hoped  the  old  Divinity  Hall  would  be  a  good 
neighbour  to  the  pile  rising  opposite.  "  Yes," 
was  the  bluff  reply,  "  and  I  hope  to  see  the  time 
when  it  will  be  turned  into  a  dormitory  for  my 
scientific  students."  They  were  quickly  spoken, 
unmeditated  words  without  intention  of  rudeness, 
but  wrapped  in  his  specialty  he  was  rather  care- 
less as  to  what  he  might  shoulder  out.  Again, 
we  had  in  our  company  a  delicate,  nervous  fel- 
low who  turned  out  to  be  a  spiritualistic  medium, 
and  who  was  soon  subjected  to  an  investigation 
in  which  professors  took  part,  which  was  cer- 
tainly rough  and  ready.  Agassiz  speedily  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  young  man  was  an 


Alexander   Agassiz  287 

impostor  and  deserved  no  mercy.  Some  of  us 
felt  that  the  determination  was  hasty.  There 
was  a  possibility  of  honest  self-deception;  and 
then  who  could  say  that  the  mysteries  had  been 
fathomed  that  involved  the  play  of  the  psychic 
forces?  Possibly  a  calmer  and  more  candid 
mood  might  have  befitted  the  investigation.  At 
any  rate  in  these  later  days  such  a  mood  has  been 
maintained  by  inquirers  like  William  James  and 
the  Society  for  Psychical  Research.  These  are 
straws,  but  it  is  hardly  a  straw  that  when  Dar- 
winism emerged  upon  the  world,  winning  such 
speedy  and  almost  universal  adherence  among 
scientific  men  and  revolutionising  in  general  the 
thought  of  the  world  as  to  the  method  of  crea- 
tion, Agassiz  stood  almost  solitary  among  au- 
thorities rejecting  evolution  and  clinging  to  the 
doctrine  of  a  special  calling  into  being  of  each 
species.  His  stand  against  the  new  teaching  was 
definite  and  bold,  but  can  it  be  called  broad- 
minded?  This  is  but  the  limitation  that  makes 
human  a  greatness  which  the  world  regards  with 
thorough  and  affectionate  reverence.  Fortunate 
are  those  in  whose  memories  live  the  voice  and 
countenance  of  Louis  Agassiz. 

Those  whose  privilege  it  was  to  know  both 
father  and  son  will  be  slow  to  admit  that  the 
elder  Agassiz  was  the  greater  man.  Alexander 
(to  his  intimates  he  was  always,  affectionately, 
Alex),  was  a  teacher  only  transiently,  and  I  be- 
lieve never  before  a  class  showed  the  enkindling 


288  The  Last  Leaf 

power  which  in  the  father  was  so  marked  a  gift. 
His  attainments,  however,  were  probably  not  less 
great,  and  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  his  dis- 
coveries were  not  as  epoch-making.  He  pos- 
sessed, moreover,  a  versatility  which  his  father 
never  showed  (perhaps  because  he  never  took 
time  to  show  it),  standing  as  a  brilliant  figure 
among  financiers  and  captains  of  industry. 
Finally,  in  a  high  sense,  Alexander  was  a  philan- 
thropist, and  his  benefactions  were  no  more 
munificent  than  they  were  wisely  applied;  for 
he  watched  well  his  generous  hand,  guiding  the 
flow  into  channels  where  it  might  most  effec- 
tually revive  and  enrich.  While  possibly  in  the 
case  of  the  elder  Agassiz,  the  recognition  of 
truth  was  sometimes  unduly  circumscribed,  that 
could  never  be  said  of  Alexander.  He  was 
eminently  broad-minded,  estimating  with  just 
candour  whatever  might  be  advanced  in  his  own 
field,  and  outside  of  his  field,  entering  with  sym- 
pathetic interest  into  all  that  life  might  present, 

I  recall  him  first  on  a  day  soon  after  our  en- 
trance into  college  in  1851.  A  civic  celebration 
was  to  take  place  in  Boston,  and  the  Harvard 
students  were  to  march  in  the  procession.  That 
day  I  first  heard  Fair  Harvard,  sonorously  ren- 
dered by  the  band  at  the  head  of  our  column, 
as  we  formed  on  the  Beacon  Street  mall  before 
the  State  House.  A  boy  of  sixteen,  dressed  in 
gray,  came  down  the  steps  to  take  his  place  in 
our  class—a  handsome  fellow,  brown-eyed,  and 


A.  Agassiz  in  College  289 

dark-haired,  trimly  built,  and  well-grown  for  his 
years.  His  face  had  a  foreign  air,  and  when  he 
spoke  a  peculiarity  marked  his  speech.  This  he 
never  lost,  but  it  was  no  imperfection.  Rather 
it  gave  distinction  to  his  otherwise  perfect  Eng- 
lish. In  the  years  of  our  course,  we  met  daily. 
He  was  a  good  general  scholar  but  with  a  pre- 
ference from  the  first  for  natural  science  and 
mathematics.  He  matured  into  handsome  man- 
hood, and  as  an  athlete  was  among  the  best. 
He  was  a  master  of  the  oar,  not  dropping  it  on 
graduation,  but  long  a  familiar  figure  on  the 
Charles.  Here  incidentally  he  left  upon  the 
University  a  curious  and  lasting  mark.  The 
crew  one  day  were  exercising  bare-headed  on 
the  Back  Bay,  when  encountering  stress  of 
weather,  Agassiz  was  sent  up  into  the  city  to 
find  some  proper  head-gear.  He  presently  re- 
turned with  a  package  of  handkerchiefs  of  crim- 
son, which  so  demonstrated  their  convenience 
and  played  a  part  on  so  many  famous  occasions, 
that  crimson  became  the  Harvard  colour. 

Alexander  was  soon  absorbed  in  the  whirl  of 
life,  and  to  what  purpose  he  worked  I  need  not 
here  detail.  The  story  of  the  Calumet  and 
Hecla  Company  is  a  kind  of  commercial  romance 
which  the  harshest  critics  of  American  business 
life  may  read  with  pleasure.  At  the  same  time 
Agassiz  was  only  partially  and  transiently  a 
business-man,  returning  always  with  haste  from 
the  mine  and  the  counting-room  to  the  protracted 


290  THe  Last  Leaf 

scientific  researches  in  which  his  heart  mainly 
lay.  His  voyages  in  the  interest  of  science  were 
many  and  long.  He  studied  not  so  much  the 
shores  as  the  sea  itself.  Oceanographer  is  the 
term  perhaps  by  which  he  may  best  be  designated. 
By  deep  sea  soundings  he  mapped  the  vast  beds 
over  which  the  waters  roll  and  reached  an  in- 
timacy with  the  life  of  its  most  profound  abysses. 
Sitting  next  him  at  a  class  dinner,  an  affair  of 
dress-suits,  baked  meats,  and  cigars  at  the  finish, 
I  found  his  talk  took  one  far  away  from  the 
prose  of  the  thing.  He  was  charming  in  con- 
versation, and  he  set  forth  at  length  his  theory 
as  to  the  work  of  the  coral  insects,  formed  after 
long  study  of  the  barrier  reefs  and  atolls  of  re- 
mote seas.  His  ideas  were  subversive  of  those 
of  Darwin,  with  whom  he  disputed  the  matter 
before  Darwin  died.  They  are  now  well-known 
and  I  think  accepted,  though  unfortunately  he 
died  before  setting  them  forth  in  due  order. 
They  are  revolutionary  in  their  character  as  to 
the  origin  of  formations  that  enter  largely  into 
the  crust  of  the  earth.  In  this  field  he  stood 
as  originator  and  chief.  He  gave  me  glimpses 
of  the  wonderful  indeed,  as  we  cracked  our 
almonds  and  sipped  the  sherbet,  his  rich  voice 
and  slightly  foreign  accent  running  at  my  ear 
as  we  sat  under  the  banquet  lights. 

Though  oceanography  was  his  special  field,  his 
tastes  and  attainments  were  comprehensive  and 
he  was  a  man  of  repute  in  many  ways.    He  was  a 


His  BreadtK  of  Mind  291 

trained  and  skilled  engineer  and  mathematician, 
and  an  adept  in  the  most  various  branches  of 
natural  science.  At  another  class  dinner,  when 
I  was  so  fortunate  as  to  sit  beside  him,  his  in- 
terest in  botany  came  out  as  he  spoke  of  the 
enjoyment  he  took  in  surveying  from  the  roof  of 
the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology  the  trees 
of  Cambridge,  the  masses  of  foliage  here  and 
there  appearing  from  that  point  in  special 
beauty.  I  spoke  of  the  paper  just  read  by 
Francis  Darwin,  the  son  of  Charles,  before  the 
British  Association,  emphasising  the  idea  that 
the  life  of  plants  and  animals  differs  not  in 
kind  but  only  in  degree.  Plants  may  have 
memory,  perhaps  show  passion,  predatory  in- 
stincts, or  rudimentary  intelligence.  The  plant- 
world  is  therefore  part  and  parcel  of  animated 
nature.  Agassiz  announced  with  real  fervour 
his  adherence  to  that  belief  and  cited  interesting 
facts  in  its  support.  Subtle  links  binding  plant 
and  animal  reveal  themselves  everywhere  to  in- 
vestigation. In  evolution  from  the  primeval 
monads,  or  whatever  starting-points  there  were, 
the  fittest  always  survived  as  the  outpoured  life 
flowed  abundantly  along  the  million  lines  of  de- 
velopment. There  was  a  brotherhood  between 
man  and  not  only  the  zoophyte,  but  still  further 
down,  even  with  the  ultimate  cell  in  which  organ- 
isation can  first  be  traced,  only  faintly  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  azoic  rock  on  which  it 
hangs. 


292  The  Last  Leaf 

As  he  talked  I  thought  of  the  ample  spaces 
of  his  Museum  where  the  whole  great  scheme  is 
made  manifest  to  the  eye,  the  structure  of  man, 
then  the  slow  gradation  downward,  the  immense 
series  of  flowers  and  plants  counterfeited  in 
glass  continuing  the  line  unbroken,  down  to  the 
ultimate  lichen,  all  but  part  and  parcel  of  the 
ledge  to  which  it  clings. 

My  tastes  were  not  in  the  direction  of  mathe- 
matics or  natural  science,  and  it  was  not  until 
our  later  years  that  we  came  into  close  touch. 
In  the  hospice  of  the  Grimsel,  in  the  heart  of 
the  Alps,  as  I  sat  down  to  dinner  after  a  day 
of  hard  walking,  I  saw  my  classmate  in  a  re- 
mote part  of  the  room  with  his  wife  and  children 
and  a  group  of  Swiss  friends.  I  determined  not 
to  intrude,  but  as  the  dinner  ended,  coming  from 
his  place  he  sought  me  out.  "  I  heard  your 
voice,"  he  said,  "  and  knew  you  were  here  before 
I  saw  you."  We  chatted  genially.  That  day, 
he  said,  he  had  visited  the  site  of  his  father's 
hut  on  the  Aar  glacier,  where  the  observations 
were  made  on  which  was  based  the  glacial  theory. 
On  that  visit  he  had,  as  a  small  boy,  been  car- 
ried up  in  a  basket  on  the  back  of  a  guide.  He 
had  not  been  there  since  until  that  day.  He 
was  that  night  in  the  environment  into  which 
he  had  been  born,  and  assumed  toward  me  the 
attitude  of  a  host  making  at  home  a  stranger 
guest.  To  my  question  as  to  how  a  transient 
passer  like  myself  could  best  see  a  great  ice 


A.  -Agassiz  in  Switzerland         293 

river,  he  replied,  "Climb  to-morrow  the  Aeggisch- 
horn,  and  look  down  from  there  upon  the  Aletsch 
glacier.  You  will  have  under  your  eye  all  the 
more  interesting  and  important  phenomena  re- 
lating to  the  matter."  We  parted  next  morning. 
I  had  enjoyed  a  great  privilege,  for  he  was  the 
man  of  all  men  to  meet  in  such  a  place, — a  feeling 
deepened  a  day  or  two  later,  when  I  looked  down 
from  the  peak  he  had  indicated  upon  this  wide- 
stretching  glacier  below. 

As  age  drew  on  he  mellowed  well.  Perhaps 
sympathy  with  men  and  things  outside  his  special 
walk  was  no  stronger  than  in  earlier  years,  but 
it  had  readier  expression.  I  heard  from  him  this 
good  story.  President  Eliot  was  once  showing 
about  the  university  a  multimillionaire  and  his 
wife  who  had  the  good  purpose  to  endow  a  great 
school  of  learning  in  the  West.  Having  made 
the  survey,  they  stood  in  Memorial  Hall,  about 
to  say  good-bye.  "  Well,  Mr.  Eliot,"  said  the 
wife,  "  How  much  money  have  you  invested?  " 
Mr.  Eliot  stated  to  her  the  estimated  value  of 
the  university  assets.  The  lady  turning  to  her 
husband,  exclaimed,  with  a  touch  of  the  feeling 
that  money  will  buy  everything,  "  Oh,  husband, 
we  can  do  better  than  that."  Said  Mr.  Eliot, 
with  a  wave  of  the  hand  toward  the  ancient  por- 
traits on  the  walls :  "  Madame,  we  have  one  thing 
which  money  cannot  buy, — nearly  three  centuries 
of  devotedness !  "  There  is  fine  appreciation  of 
a  precious  possession  in  this  remark.     In  other 


294  TKe  Last  Leaf 

ways  Harvard  may  be  surpassed.  Other  institu- 
tions may  easily  have  more  money,  more  stu- 
dents. As  able  men  may  be  in  other  faculties, 
possibly  (I  will  admit  even  this)  there  may  be 
elsewhere  better  football.  But  that  through 
eight  generations  there  has  been  in  the  hearts 
of  the  best  men,  a  constant  all-absorbing  devo- 
tion to  the  institution,  is  a  thing  for  America 
unique,  and  which  cannot  be  taken  away.  How 
stimulating  is  this  to  a  noble  loyalty  in  these 
later  generations !  The  old  college  is  a  thing  to 
be  watchfully  and  tenderly  shielded.  As  Alex- 
ander told  me  the  story,  I  felt  in  his  manner 
and  intonation  that  the  three  centuries  of  de- 
votedness  had  had  great  influence  with  him.  As 
John  Harvard  had  been  the  first  of  the  liberal 
givers,  so  he  was  the  last,  and  I  suppose  the 
greatest.  The  money  value  of  his  gifts  is  very 
large,  but  who  will  put  a  value  upon  the  labour, 
the  watchfulness,  the  expert  guidance  exercised 
by  such  a  man,  unrequited  and  almost  without 
intermission  throughout  a  long  life!  His  fine 
nature,  no  doubt,  prompted  the  consecration,  but 
the  old  devotedness  spurred  him  to  emulation 
of  those  who  had  gone  before. 

In  1909  I  enjoyed  through  Agassiz  a  great 
pleasure.  He  invited  me  to  his  house  where  I 
found  gathered  a  company  of  his  friends,  many 
of  them  men  of  eminence.  He  had  just  returned 
from  his  journey  in  East  Africa,  during  which 
he  had  penetrated  far  into  the  interior,  studying 


A.  Agassiz  at  Home  295 

with  his  usual  diligence  the  natural  history 
of  the  regions.  He  entertained  us  with  an  in- 
formal talk  beautifully  and  profusely  illustrated 
by  photographs.  I  have  said  that  he  did  not 
possess,  or  at  any  rate,  never  showTed  his  father's 
power  of  kindling  speech.  So  far  as  I  knowr  he 
never  addressed  large  popular  audiences.  Never- 
theless to  a  circle  of  scientific  specialists,  or  peo- 
ple intelligent  in  a  general  wTay,  he  could  present 
a  subject  charmingly,  in  clear,  calm,  fluent 
speech.  On  this  occasion  he  was  at  his  best,  and 
it  was  a  pleasure  indeed  to  have  the  marvels  of 
that  freshly-opened  land  described  to  us  by  the 
man  who  of  all  men  perhaps  was  best  able  to 
cope  with  the  story.  I  listened  with  delight  and 
awe.  He  was  an  old  man  crowned  with  the 
highest  distinctions.  I  thought  of  the  young 
handsome  boy  I  had  seen  coming  down  in  his 
grey  suit  into  the  Beacon  Street  mall,  while  the 
band  played  Fair  Harvard.  On  the  threshold  I 
shook  his  hand  and  looked  into  his  dark,  kindly 
eyes.  I  turned  away  in  the  darkness  and  saw 
him  no  more. 


CHAPTER  X 

AT   HAPHAZARD 

|N  1887,  in  pleasant  June  weather  I  left  St. 
*  Louis  with  my  family  on  the  capacious  river- 
packet  Saint  Paul,  for  a  trip  up-stream  to  the 
city  for  which  the  boat  was  named.  The  flood 
was  at  the  full  as  we  ploughed  on,  stopping  at 
landings  on  either  side,  the  reaches  between 
presenting  long  perspectives  of  summer  beauty. 
We  paused  in  due  course  at  a  little  Iowa  town, 
and  among  the  passengers  who  took  the  boat 
here  were  two  men  who  excited  our  attention 
at  the  landing.  One  was  a  tall  handsome  fellow 
in  early  manhood,  well-dressed  and  mannered, 
completely  blind.  The  other  was  his  companion, 
a  rather  dishevelled  figure  with  neglected  beard 
and  hair  setting  off  a  face  that  looked  out  some- 
what helplessly  into  a  world  strange  to  it,  an 
attire  of  loose  white  wool,  plainly  made  by  some 
tailor  who  knew  nothing  of  recent  fashion-plates. 
A  close-fitting  cap  of  the  same  material  sur- 
mounted his  head.  The  attire  wTas  whole  and 
neat,  but  the  air  of  the  man  was  slouchy  and 
bespoke  one  wrho  must  have  lately  come  from 

296 


Mr.  William  Grey  297 

the  outskirts  into  the  life  of  America.  The  young 
blindman  at  once  aroused  earnest  sympathy.  Of 
the  other  some  one  remarked,  "  Plainly  a  globe- 
trotting Englishman,  who  has  lost  his  Baedeker 
and  by  chance  got  in  here." 

Presently  the  boat  was  on  its  way,  and  as  I 
sat  facing  the  changing  scene,  I  heard  a  shuf- 
fling, hesitating  step  behind,  and  a  drawling 
somewhat  uncertain  voice  asked  me  about  the 
country.  I  replied  that  it  was  my  first  trip  and 
I  was  ignorant.  Turning  full  upon  the  querist, 
no  other  than  the  globe-trotter,  I  said:  "You 
are  an  Englishman  I  see.  I  was  in  England  last 
year.  I  have  spent  some  time  in  London,  and 
I  know  other  parts  of  your  country."  A  con- 
versation followed  which  soon  became  to  me  in- 
teresting. My  companion  had  education  and 
intelligence,  and  before  the  afternoon  ended  we 
were  agreeably  in  touch.  He  handed  me  his 
card  on  which  was  engraved  the  name,  "  Mr. 
William  Grey."  I  told  him  I  was  a  Harvard 
man,  a  professor  in  Washington  University,  St. 
Louis.  He  was  of  Exeter  College,  Oxford,  and 
for  some  years  had  been  a  professor  in  Codring- 
ton  College,  Barbadoes,  in  the  West  Indies, 
whence  he  had  lately  come.  To  my  natural  sur- 
prise that  he  should  be  so  far  astray,  he  said 
he  had  been  visiting  a  fellow  Exeter  man,  a 
clergyman  of  the  English  Church,  who  was  the 
rector  of  an  Iowa  parish.  It  further  developed 
that  his  young  blind  companion  belonged  to  a 


298  THe  Last  Leaf 

family  in  the  parish,  and  that  Mr.  Grey  had 
good-heartedly  assumed  the  care  of  him  during 
an  outing  on  the  river. 

A  trip  from  St.  Louis  to  St.  Paul  by  river  is 
longer  now  than  a  trip  across  the  Atlantic.  I 
was  nearly  a  week  in  my  new  companionship, 
and  acquaintance  grew  and  deepened  fast.  The 
young  blindman,  whose  manners  were  agreeable, 
became  a  general  favourite,  and  Mr.  Grey  and 
I  found  we  had  much  in  common.  I  mentioned 
to  him  that  my  errand  in  England  the  year  be- 
fore had  been  to  find  material  for  a  life  of  Young 
Sir  Henry  Vane,  the  statesman  and  martyr  of 
the  English  Commonwealth,  and  in  his  young 
days  a  governor  of  the  province  of  Massachusetts 
Bay.  This  touched  in  him  a  responsive  chord. 
He  was  familiar  with  the  period  and  the  char- 
acter. He  was  a  friend  of  Shorthouse  whose 
novel,  John  Inglesant  was  a  widely-read  book  of 
those  days.  He  had  helped  Shorthouse  in  his 
researches  for  the  book,  and  knew  well  the  story 
of  Charles  I.,  and  his  friends  and  foes.  He  was 
himself  a  staunch  Churchman,  but  mentioned 
with  some  pleasure  that  his  name  appeared 
among  the  Non-conformists.  A  sturdy  noble  of 
those  days  was  Lord  Grey  of  Groby,  who  op- 
posed the  King  to  the  last,  standing  at  the  right 
hand  of  the  redoubtable  Colonel  Pride  at  the 
famous  "  Pride's  Purge,"  pointing  out  to  him 
the  Presbyterians  whom  the  Ironside  was  to 
turn   out   of  Parliament,   in   the   thick   of   the 


Sir  George  Grey  299 

crisis.  To  my  inquiry  as  to  whether  Lord  Grey 
of  Groby  was  an  ancestor,  he  was  reticent, 
merely  saying  that  the  name  was  the  same.  T 
had  begun  to  surmise  that  my  new  friend  was 
allied  with  the  Greys  who  in  so  many  periods 
of  English  history  have  borne  a  famous  part. 
Some  years  before,  while  sojourning  in  a  little 
town  on  the  Ohio  River,  a  stroll  carried  me  to 
a  coal-mine  in  the  neighbourhood.  As  I  peered 
down  two  hundred  feet  into  the  dark  shaft,  a 
bluff,  peremptory  voice  called  to  me  to  look  out 
for  my  head.  I  drew  back  in  time  to  escape 
the  cage  as  it  descended  with  a  group  of  miners 
from  a  higher  plane  to  the  lower  deeps.  I 
thanked  my  bluff  friend,  who  had  saved  my 
head  from  a  bump.  A  pleasant  acquaintance 
followed  which  led  to  his  taking  me  down  into 
the  mine,  a  thrilling  experience.  He  was  an 
adventurous  Englishman  who  had  put  money 
into  a  far-away  enterprise,  and  come  with  his 
wife  and  children  to  take  care  of  it.  His  wife 
was  a  lady  well-born,  a  sister  of  Sir  George  Grey, 
twice  governor  of  New  Zealand,  and  at  the  time 
High  Commissioner  and  governor  of  Cape 
Colony,  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  great 
English  nation-makers  of  the  South  Seas.  I 
came  to  know  the  lady,  and  naturally  followed 
the  career  of  her  brother,  who  earned  a  noble 
reputation.  Later  I  corresponded  with  him,  and 
received  from  him  his  portrait  and  books.  Re- 
ferring to  Sir  George  Grey  in  my  talk  with  Mr. 


300  The  Last  Leaf 

Williain  Grey,  I  found  that  he  knew  him  well, 
and  not  long  before,  in  a  voyage  of  which  he 
had  made  many  into  many  seas,  had  visited  New 
Zealand,  and  been  a  gnest  of  Sir  George  Grey 
at  his  island-home  in  the  harbour  of  Auckland. 
Was  he  related  to  Sir  George?  was  my  natural 
query.  Again  there  was  reticence.  The  name 
was  the  same,  but  the  Greys  were  numerous. 

The  journey  wore  on.  The  resource  of  the 
steamer's  company  was  to  sit  on  the  upper  deck, 
watch  the  swollen  river  with  its  waifs  of  up- 
rooted trees  and  the  banks  green  with  the 
summer,  chatting  ourselves  into  intimacy.  The 
young  blindman  made  good  and  very  good,  and 
his  guardian,  while  keeping  a  lookout  on  his 
charge  from  under  his  well-worn  traveller's  cap, 
which  I  now  knew  had  sheltered  its  owner  in 
tropic  hurricanes  and  icy  Arctic  blasts,  discussed 
with  me  matters  various  and  widely  related. 
Nearing  our  journey's  end,  we  sat  in  the  moon- 
light, the  Mississippi  opening  placidly  before  us 
between  hazy  hills.  We  had  grown  to  be  chums, 
and  next  morning  we  were  to  part.  It  was  a 
time  for  confidences.  "  Well,"  said  Mr.  Grey, 
"  I  am  going  to  get  a  good  look  at  America, 
then  I  mean  to  return  home  and  go  into  Par- 
liament." I  suggested  there  might  be  difficulties 
about  that.  English  elections  were  uncertain, 
and  how  could  he  be  at  all  sure  that  any  con- 
stituency would  want  him.  "  Ah,"  said  he,  this 
time  no  longer  reticent.    "  I  am  going  into  the 


THe  Earl  of  Stamford  301 

House  of  Lords."  "  Indeed,"  said  I  in  surprise, 
"  and  who  are  you  really,  Mr.  William  Grey?  " 
At  last  he  was  outspoken.  He  was  heir  to  the 
earldom  of  Stamford,  his  uncle  the  present  earl, 
a  man  past  eighty,  childless,  and  in  infirm  health, 
must  soon  lay  down  the  title.  He  was  preparing 
himself  for  the  responsibilities  of  the  high  posi- 
tion and  believed  it  well  to  make  a  study  of 
America.  His  father,  a  younger  son,  had  been  a 
clergyman  in  Canada,  and  he,  though  with  an 
Oxford  training,  knew  the  world  outside  of 
England  better  than  the  old  home.  His  direct 
ancestor  was  Lord  Grey  of  Groby,  whose  father, 
an  earl  of  Stamford,  had  been  a  Parliamentary 
commander  in  the  years  of  the  Civil  War,  and 
in  the  century  before  that,  a  flower  of  the  house 
had  been  the  Lady  Jane  Grey,  who  had  perished 
in  her  youth  on  the  scaffold,  a  possible  heir  to 
the  English  crown.  So  this  outre  personage, 
good-heartedly  helping  the  blindman  to  an  out- 
ing, and  in  a  shy  apologetic  way  getting  into 
touch  with  an  environment  strange  to  him,  was 
a  high-born  nobleman  fitting  himself  for  his 
dignities. 

I  had  before  invited  Mr.  Grey  to  visit  me  in 
St.  Louis,  for  his  seeming  helplessness  appealed 
to  me  from  the  first.  He  had  met  some  hard 
rebuffs  in  his  American  contacts.  I  thought  I 
might  aid  him  in  making  his  way.  Returning 
in  the  autumn  to  my  home,  I  heard  from  Mr. 
Grey  that  he  was  coming  to  be  my  guest,  and 


302  Tke  Last  Leaf 

in  due  time  he  arrived.  I  missed  him  at  the 
station,  but  he  presently  appeared  at  our  door, 
in  an  express-waggon,  sitting  on  the  seat  with 
the  driver,  in  the  midst  of  his  belongings.  He 
spent  a  week  with  us  in  the  first  American  home 
he  had  known,  and  we  found  him  an  amiable 
and  unobtrusive  gentleman.  He  was  a  vigorous 
walker  and  explored  the  city  well.  His  listless, 
seemingly  inattentive  eyes  somehow  scanned 
everything,  and  he  judged  well  what  he  wit- 
nessed. He  was  an  accomplished  scholar  and 
had  a  quiet  humour.  A  little  daughter  half- 
playfully  and  half-wilfully,  announced  her  in- 
tention to  follow  her  own  pleasure  in  a  certain 
case.  "  Milicent  is  a  Hedonist,"  said  the  guest, 
and  the  Oxford  scholar  brought  Aristippus  and 
Epicurus  into  odd  conjunction  with  a  Mississippi 
Valley  breakfast-table.  He  laid  aside  his  white 
woollen  suit,  but  his  attire  remained  unconven- 
tional, not  to  say  outre.  Even  the  wrinkled 
dress-suit  in  which  he  appeared  at  dinner,  I 
think  was  the  achievement  of  a  tailor  in  the 
island  of  Barbadoes.  His  opera-hat  was  a 
wonder.  He  was,  or  was  soon  to  be,  a  belted 
earl,  but  his  belt  only  appeared  on  his  pajamas, 
raiment  of  which  I  heard  then  for  the  first  time. 
It  had  early  appeared  in  our  intercourse  that 
the  main  interest  of  Mr.  Grey  lay  in  humane 
and  religious  work.  He  also  was  a  devoted 
member  of  the  Church  of  England.  On  Sunday 
morning  we  started  early  for  the  leading  Epis- 


A  HigH-Born  Humanitarian        303 

copal  Church  but  on  the  way  he  inquired  as  to 
the  place  of  worship  of  the  negro  congregation 
of  that  faith.  I  confessed  my  ignorance  of  it, 
but  he  had  in  some  way  ascertained  it,  and  I 
presently  found  myself  following  his  lead  down 
a  rather  squalid  street  where  at  last  we  came 
to  the  humble  temple.  Instead  of  hearing  the 
bishop,  a  famous  and  eloquent  man,  he  pre- 
ferred to  sit  on  a  bare  bench  in  the  obscure  little 
meeting-house,  where  he  fraternised  cordially 
with  the  dusky  company  we  found  there.  He 
was  more  interested  in  our  charities  than  in  our 
politics  and  business,  and  in  his  quiet  way  dur- 
ing the  week  learned  the  story  well.  I  intro- 
duced him  to  Southern  friends  who  gave  him 
letters  to  persons  in  the  South.  Provided  with 
these  he  bade  us  good-bye  at  last,  and  went  far 
and  wide  through  what  had  been  the  Confed- 
eracy. He  visited  Jefferson  Davis  and  many 
soldiers  and  politicians  of  note,  getting  at  first- 
hand their  point  of  view.  I  also  gave  him  let- 
ters to  some  eminent  men  in  the  East,  which  he 
presented,  meeting  with  a  good  reception.  He 
made  a  wide  and  shrewd  study  of  the  United 
States,  and  I  am  glad  to  think  I  helped  him. 
When  I  met  him  he  was  unfriended  and  without 
credentials,  and  his  singularities  were  exposing 
him  to  some  inconvenient  jostling  in  our  rough 
world.  I  opened  some  doors  to  him  through 
which  he  pushed  his  way  into  much  that  was 
best  worth   seeing   in  American   life.      An   old 


304  The  Last  Leaf 

friend,  a  radical  man  of  letters,  wrote  me  after- 
wards that  he  enjoyed  Mr.  Grey,  and  he  thought 
Mr.  Grey  enjoyed  him  although  he  believed  that 
if  he  had  been  a  pauper,  a  criminal,  or  even  a 
bishop,  Mr.  Grey  would  have  enjoyed  him  much 
more. 

He  returned  to  England  and  did  not  forget 
me,  writing  from  time  to  time  how  his  affairs 
progressed.  Soon  he  entered  into  his  own,  the 
earldom  of  Stamford,  finding  about  the  same 
time  his  countess  in  an  English  vicarage.  In 
the  House  of  Lords  he  was  not  prominent, 
though  the  papers  occasionally  mentioned  brief 
addresses  by  him.  His  main  interest  con- 
tinued to  be  charitable  work.  He  was  a  lay- 
preacher,  and  worked  much  in  the  east  end  of 
London,  throwing  the  weight  of  his  culture  and 
high  position  into  alleviating  ignorance  and  pov- 
erty. He  sent  me  interesting  literature  relating 
to  the  efforts  of  well-placed  men  and  women  to 
carry  into  slums  and  hovels  sweetness  and  light. 
In  due  time  a  daughter  was  born  to  him,  whom 
lie  named  Jane  Grey;  and  later  a  son,  Lord 
Grey  of  Groby.  I  saw  once  in  the  London 
Graphic,  or  perhaps  in  the  Illustrated  News, 
charming  pictures  of  these  children  with  their 
interesting  historic  names.  Though  rigidly  a 
Churchman  he  was  not  narrow.  Lord  Stamford 
sent  me  a  handsome  picture  of  himself,  to  which 
is  affixed  his  signature  as  an  earl  and  an  ela- 
borate seal.     In  an  accompanying  note  he  wrote 


An  Honourable  Line  305 

that  the  seal  was  a  careful  facsimile  of  the  one 
which  an  ancestor  of  his  had  affixed  to  the  death- 
warrant  of  Charles  I.  He  seemed  to  take  pride 
in  the  fact  that  his  forbear  had  borne  a  part  in 
the  ancient  Non-conformist  strivings.  He  came 
to  America  more  than  once  afterward,  as  a  dele- 
gate to  charitable  and  peace  Congresses.  My 
dear  friend  Robert  Treat  Paine,  President  of  the 
Peace  Society  and  eminent  philanthropist  of 
Boston,  knew  him  well  and  esteemed  him  highly 
— and  he  was  the  fellow  of  workers  like  him. 

It  is  a  picturesque  moment  in  my  life  that  I 
in  this  way  came  into  association  with  a  noble- 
man of  the  bluest  blood.  To  outward  appear- 
ance as  I  stumbled  upon  him  so  unexpectedly,  he 
seemed  effete.  His  odd  shuffle  and  limp  whiskers 
were  dundrearily  suggestive  of  a  personality  a 
bit  mildewed.  But  I  felt  that  what  ineptitude 
there  was,  was  only  superficial;  good,  strong 
manhood  lay  underneath.  His  death  took  place 
some  years  since. 

Burke's  Peerage  states  that  the  family  was 
ennobled  by  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  and  has 
maintained  itself  in  a  high  place  for  eight  cen- 
turies. Privilege  is  a  bough  of  the  social  tree 
from  which  we  expect  mere  dead  sea-fruit  rather 
than  a  wholesome  yield,  but  now  and  then  the 
product  holds  something  better  than  ashes.  As 
we  trace  this  stock  through  the  ages,  apples  of 
Sodom,  no  doubt,  will  be  found  in  abundance, 
but  now  and  then   it  flowers  into  heroic  man- 


306  The  Last  Leaf 

hood  and  lovely  womanhood.  My  chance  com- 
rade of  the  St.  Paul  was  a  refined,  high-purposed 
man,  certainly  a  product  of  the  worthier  kind, 
and  I  am  glad  to  count  among  my  friends, 
William  Grey,  Ninth  Earl  of  Stamford. 

As  a  student  of  German,  anxious  to  gain 
fluency  of  expression,  and  to  train  my  ear  to 
catch  readily  the  popular  idioms,  I  found  that 
I  must  fill  out  my  writing  and  reading  by  con- 
tact with  men.  After  roving  the  streets  of 
German  cities,  I  packed  a  knapsack  and  set  out 
upon  the  country -roads.  I  was,  as  the  Germans 
say,  gut  zu  Fuss,  a  stout  walker,  and  I  learned 
to  employ  for  my  longer  expeditions  the  Bummcl- 
Zug,  an  institution  I  commend  highly  to  all  in 
my  situation.  The  Bummel-Zug  is  simply  a 
"  way  "  freight-train,  to  which  in  my  time  was 
attached  a  car  for  third-class  passengers.  It 
stopped  at  every  village,  and  the  fare  was  very 
low.  It  was  convenient,  therefore,  for  those  too 
poor  to  be  in  a  hurry,  and  for  travellers  like  me 
whose  purpose  could  be  better  served  by  loitering 
than  by  haste.  The  train  proceeded  leisurely, 
giving  ample  time  for  deliberate  survey  of  the 
land,  and  the  frequent  pauses  of  indefinite 
length  afforded  opportunity  for  walks  through 
the  streets  of  remote  hamlets  and  even  into  the 
country  about,  where  the  peasants  with  true 
Teuton  Gemuthlichkeit  always  welcomed  a  man 
who  came  from  America. 


A  Franciscan  Friar  3°7 

Thus  on  my  legs  and  by  Bummel-Zug  I  wan- 
dered far,  arriving  one  pleasant  day  at  the 
ancient  city  of  Salzburg,  close  to  the  Bavarian 
Alps.  I  was  anxious  to  see  something  of  the 
Tyrol,  and  had  been  told  that  the  Konigs-See 
offered  the  finest  and  most  characteristic  scenery 
of  that  region.  Salzburg  was  a  suitable  point 
of  departure.  The  sky  darkened  and  it  began 
to  rain  heavily.  Berchtesgaden,  in  the  moun- 
tains, the  nearest  village  to  the  Konigs-See,  was 
only  to  be  reached  by  Eilwagen,  a  modification 
of  the  diligence,  which  forty  years  ago  still  held 
its  place  on  the  Alpine  roads.  I  stood  at  the 
door  of  the  inn,  observing  the  company  who 
were  to  be  my  fellow-passengers.  There  were 
two  or  three  from  the  outside  world,  like  my- 
self, a  few  mountaineers  with  suggestions  of  the 
Tyrol  in  their  garb,  and  one  figure  in  a  high 
degree  picturesque,  a  Franciscan  friar  in  guise 
as  mediaeval  as  possible.  His  coarse,  brown  robe 
wrapped  him  from  head  to  foot.  A  knotted  cord 
bound  his  waist,  the  ends  depending  toward  the 
pavement  and  swinging  with  his  rosary.  His 
feet  were  shod  with  sandals,  and  his  head  was 
bare,  though  an  ample  cowl  was  at  hand  to 
shelter  it.  His  head  needed  no  tonsure  for  age 
had  made  him  nearly  bald.  His  shaven  face 
was  kind  and  strong  and  he  was  in  genial  touch 
with  the  by-standers,  to  whom  no  doubt  such  a 
figure  was  not  novel.  Incongruously  enough,  the 
friar  held  over  his  head  in  the  pouring  rain  a 


308  The  Last  Leaf 

modern  umbrella,  his  only  concession  to  the 
storm  and  to  modernity.  Presently  we  climbed 
in  for  the  journey,  and  I  was  a  trifle  taken  aback 
when  the  monk  by  chance  followed  me  directly, 
and  as  we  settled  into  our  seats  was  my  close 
vis-a-vis.  As  we  bumped  along  the  rough  road 
our  legs  became  dove-tailed  together,  I  as  well 
as  he  wrapped  in  the  coarse  folds  of  his  monkish 
robe,  the  rosary  as  convenient  to  my  hand  as  to 
his,  and  as  the  vehicle  swayed  our  heads  dodged 
each  other  as  we  rocked  back  and  forth.  Thrown 
thus,  as  it  were  into  the  embrace  of  the  past, 
I  made  the  most  of  it  and  got  as  far  as  might 
be  into  the  mediaeval.  I  found  my  friar  charm- 
ingly companionable.  His  Bavarian  patois  was 
not  easy  to  follow,  nor  could  he  catch  readily 
the  speech  I  had  been  learning  in  the  schools. 
But  we  made  shift  and  had  much  talk  as  we 
drove  through  the  storm  into  the  highlands.  He 
was  a  brother  in  the  monastery  at  Salzburg,  but 
being  out  of  health,  was  making  his  way  to  a 
hospice  of  his  order  above  the  valley.  He  had 
heard  of  America,  and  knew  there  were  houses 
of  his  order  in  that  strange  land.  He  was  doubt- 
ful of  its  location,  and  possibly  an  American  was 
a  creature  with  whom  he  had  never  till  then 
been  in  touch.  Under  the  scrutiny  of  his  mild 
eyes  I  was  being  studied  as  a  queer  outlandish 
specimen,  as  he  certainly  was  to  me.  We  parted 
at  last  as  good  friends,  his  head  now  enveloped 
in  the  cowl,  his  sandals  pattering  off  in  the  dusk 


The  Watzmann  309 

toward  the  little  cell  that  awaited  him  in  the 
hospice,  while  I  sought  a  place  by  the  fire  in 
the  inn  of  Berchtesgaden.  I  learned  afterward 
that  he  was  well  known  and  much  venerated  in 
Salzburg. 

I  came  into  the  mountain-nook  oddly  com- 
panioned, and  my  exit  thence  was  equally  so, 
though  greatly  in  contrast.  For  a  day  or  two 
I  was  storm-bound,  and  felt  the  depression 
natural  in  a  remote  solitude,  wrapped  in  by 
rain  and  fog,  with  no  society  but  an  unintelli- 
gible mountaineer  or  two.  At  last  it  cleared 
and  the  revulsion  was  inspiring.  I  found  my- 
self in  a  little  green  vale  hemmed  in  by  magni- 
ficent heights  whose  rocky  summits  were  covered 
with  freshly-fallen  snow.  Close  at  hand  rose  the 
Watzmann,  a  soaring  pyramid  whose  summit 
was  cleft  into  two  sharp  peaks  inclined  into 
some  semblance  of  a  bishop's  mitre.  My  recent 
association  with  the  monk  had  made  vivid  the 
thought  of  the  old  church,  and  it  seemed  fitting 
that  there  should  be  lifted  high  in  air  such  a 
symbol  of  the  domination  under  which  the  region 
lay.  But  my  Protestant  eyes  regarded  it  cheer- 
fully, glad  to  have  within  range  an  object  so 
picturesque.  I  forthwith  strapped  on  my  knap- 
sack, buckled  my  belt,  and  strode  out  for  the 
Konigs-See,  which  lay  not  far  beyond.  I  walked 
briskly  for  a  mile  or  two,  stimulated  by  the 
abounding  oxygen  of  the  highland  air,  but  pre- 
sently found  myself  where  the  road  forked  and 


310  The  Lest  Leaf 

there  was  nothing  to  indicate  which  was  my 
right  path.  The  solitude  seemed  complete,  but 
as  I  stood  hesitating,  I  was  relieved  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  pedestrian  who  emerged  from  a 
by-way.  As  I  framed  an  inquiry  I  was  deterred 
by  a  certain  augustness  in  the  stranger.  I  had 
rarely  seen  a  man  of  finer  bearing.  His  stature 
was  commanding,  his  figure,  even  in  the  rough, 
loose  walking-dress  he  wore,  was  full  of  sym- 
metry. His  elastic  step  showed  vigour,  and  his 
face  under  his  broad-brimmed  Tyrolese  hat  had 
much- manly  beauty.  Was  he  perhaps  a  prince 
in  disguise?  His  friendly  salutation,  given  in  deep 
masculine  tones  with  a  good-natured  smile,  put 
me  at  ease  as  I  told  him  my  strait.  He  said  in 
good  German,  wThich  I  was  glad  once  more  to 
hear  after  my  experience  of  the  mountain  patois, 
that  he  was  on  the  way  to  the  Konigs-See,  that 
he  knew  the  road,  and  we  would  walk  on  to- 
gether. I  accommodated  myself  to  his  stride 
and  we  settled  into  a  pace  which  carried  us 
rapidly  toward  our  goal,  meanwhile  talking 
cheerfully.  I  had  found  it  usually  a  good  pass- 
port to  say  I  was  an  American  and  I  withheld 
nothing  as  to  my  antecedents  and  my  present 
errand  in  Germany.  He  was  more  reticent.  He 
lived  in  Prussia  and  was  at  the  moment  taking 
an  outing.  His  affability  did  not  go  the  length 
of  revealing  his  true  character.  If  he  were  a 
high  personage  incognito,  I  was  not  to  know  it. 
We  reached  at  last  the  shore  of  the  Konigs- 


The  Mysterious  Stranger  3* * 

See,  a  blue,  deep  lake  at  a  high  elevation,  en- 
circled by  lofty  peaks,  splintered,  storm-beaten, 
and  capped  by  snow  which  never  melts,  far  above 
the  range  of  grass  and  trees.     A  group  of  women 
on  the  beach  had  ready  two  or  three  broad  and 
rudely-built  boats,  and  noisily  clamoured  for  our 
patronage.     We  chose  what  seemed  the  best,  and 
the  women  rowers  with  stout  arms  soon  propelled 
us  far  from  shore  into  the  midst  of  the  Alpine 
sublimity.     A  silence  fell,  broken  only  by  the 
oar-beats.     Then,  where  the  precipices  rose  high- 
est we  paused.     Suddenly  a  gun  was  fired.     It 
broke  upon  the  silence  startlingly  loud,  and  after 
an  interval  the  report  reverberated  in  a  series 
of  crashes  from  height  after  height,  dying  down 
into  a  dull  murmur  from  the  steep  most  distant. 
I  was  awed  by  the  sight  and  the  sound,  and 
awed  too,  by  my  companion.     He  had  thrown 
off  his  hat  and  knapsack  and  stood  with  his  fine 
stature  at  the  bow.     His  classic  face  was  turned 
upward  to  the  peaks,  and  with  a  look  as  if  he 
felt  their  power.      He  waved  his  arms  toward 
them  as  if  in  a  salutation  to  things  sentient. 
The    man    seemed    to    befit    the    environment, 
majestic  though  it  was. 

We  returned  sooner  than  we  desired  from  our 
excursion  on  the  water,  the  boat-women  being 
over  eager  for  new  passengers.  My  companion 
resumed  his  knapsack  and  it  was  time  to  part. 
To  his  question  as  to  my  plan  I  replied  that  I 
was  there  simply  for  the  scenery,  that  I  purposed 


312  The  Last  Leaf 

to  make  my  way  back  to  Salzburg  on  foot  by 
the  paths  that  promised  most,  and  should  be 
guided  by  whatever  I  might  learn.  He  said  that 
he,  too,  was  bound  for  Salzburg,  walking  for 
pleasure;  and  when  I  thereupon  suggested  that 
we  might  go  on  together,  he  readily  fell  in,  and 
we  trudged  forward.  Comradeship  grew  strong 
as  the  day  passed,  then  a  night  in  an  unfre- 
quented inn,  then  another  day.  We  discussed 
things  near  and  far,  ancient  and  recent,  I  talk- 
ing most  but  he  was  always  genial  and  quietly 
responsive,  and  my  confidence  was  invited.  I  told 
him  of  the  little  fresh-water  college  in  the  West 
with  which  I  was  associated,  my  functions  be- 
ing partly  pedagogic  and  partly  pastoral,  of  the 
embarrassments  of  co-education  as  we  found 
them,  the  difficulty  in  the  uplift  of  too  frivolous 
youth  to  a  high  moral  and  spiritual  plane,  the 
embarrassment  in  curbing  characters  too  reck- 
less into  decorum  and  propriety.  He  listened 
sympathetically,  with  no  discoverable  cynicism 
in  the  rather  grave  smile  he  usually  wTore.  As 
to  whom  he  might  be,  he  remained  constantly 
reticent,  though  my  curiosity  increased  as  the 
hours  flew.  We  passed  not  far  from  two  or  three 
mountain  resorts,  where  tourists  were  gathered. 
Near  such  my  companion  showed  some  nervous- 
ness. There  might  be  people  there  who  knew 
him,  and  it  suited  him  for  the  time  to  remain 
by  himself.  This  I  took  as  some  small  confirma- 
tion of  my  suspicion  that  he  was  a  great  per- 


A  Garden  in  Salzburg  313 

sonage.  Physically  certainly  he  was  superbly 
endowed.  The  roads  were  rough  and  often 
steep,  and  I  found  the  tramp  fatiguing;  but 
when  I  asked  if  he,  too,  were  not  tired,  he 
laughed  at  the  idea,  tossing  his  burden  or  taking 
an  extra  climb  as  fresh  as  at  the  start.  At  night 
our  cots  were  in  the  same  room.  As  he  stripped 
off  his  shirt  and  stood  with  head  pillared  upon 
a  most  stately  neck,  and  massive,  well-moulded 
chest  and  shoulders,  he  was  statuesque  indeed. 

At  last  Salzburg  came  in  sight.  Though  we 
had  become  quite  intimate  I  had  made  no  pro- 
gress in  penetrating  to  my  comrade's  true  char- 
acter. I  had  laid  many  an  innocent  little  trap 
to  induce  him  to  speak  more  openly,  but  no 
slip  on  his  part  ever  betrayed  him.  We  entered 
the  city  and  sat  down  together  at  a  table  in  a 
public  garden,  near  the  castle  of  the  old  Bishops 
of  Salzburg,  ordering  for  each  a  glass  of  light 
wine,  the  parting-cup.  Already,  since  our  en- 
trance into  the  city  things  had  occurred  which 
partly  confirmed  the  theory  I  had  formed  as  to 
the  distinction  of  my  comrade,  and  also  aroused 
in  my  mind  doubts  not  quite  comfortable.  He 
was  an  object  of  interest  in  the  well-dressed 
crowd.  That  he  was  a  conspicuously  handsome 
man  in  a  measure  explained  that,  but  there  were 
signs,  too,  that  some  recognised  him  as  a  person 
well-known.  When  we  were  seated  in  the  garden 
actual  acquaintances  began  to  appear,  agile 
athletic  young  men,  who  were  deferential  but 


314  The  Last  Leaf 

familiar.  There  were  ladies,  too,  modest  enough, 
but  certainly  unconventional,  nimble  free-footed 
beings,  with  feathers  and  ribbons  streaming 
airily  as  they  flitted.  These,  like  the  men,  were 
deferential  to  my  comrade,  yet  familiar.  There 
seemed  to  be  a  renewing  of  some  old  tie  that 
all  were  glad  to  reconnect.  The  young  men  were 
actively  demonstrative,  the  ladies  wove  in  and 
out  smilingly,  and  my  comrade  in  the  midst 
beamed  and  grew  voluble.  Was  it  an  environ- 
ment into  which  a  quiet  American  college  func- 
tionary could  properly  fit?  No  due  bounds  were 
transgressed,  but  the  atmosphere  was  certainly 
very  Bohemian.  My  prince  incognito,  was  he 
perhaps  the  Prince  of  Pilsen?  While  this  happy 
mingling  was  going  forward  I  sat  somewhat 
aloof,  disconcerted  that  my  cloud-capped  towers 
and  gorgeous  palaces  were  thus  crumbling  into 
comic  opera.  But  now  my  comrade  approached 
me,  aglow  with  social  excitement,  and,  with  a 
franker  look  in  his  eyes  than  he  had  before 
shown,  addressed  me:  "  Mein  lieber  Herr  Pro- 
fessor, we  have  had  a  good  ramble  together  and 
talked  about  many  things.  You  have  been  con- 
fidential with  me,  and  hoped  that  I  would  be 
with  you.  I  have  preferred  to  hold  back,  but  now 
as  we  part  I  ought  to  tell  you  who  I  am.  I 
am  the  premier  danseur  in  the  ballet  of  the 
Royal  Opera  House  in  Berlin.  WTorn  with  the 
heavy  work  in  Fantasca,  which  we  produced 
elaborately  and  which  ran  long,  I  came  down 


A  Queer  Denouement  315 

here  when  the  season  closed,  for  change  and 
rest,  and  so  fell  in  with  you.  These  young 
Herren  and  Damen  are  the  coryphes  and  figur- 
antes, who  in  Berlin  or  in  other  cities  have  taken 
part  with  me  in  productions.  Good  people  they 
are  and  unsurpassed  as  a  corps  de  ballet." 
We  touched  glasses,  shook  hands,  and  I  went 
my  way  leaving  Comus  with  his  rout,  guileless, 
I  hope,  as  Milton's  innocent  "  Lady,"  but  such 
scales  never  fell  from  her  starry  eyes  as  fell 
from  mine.  I  knew  well  about  Fantasca.  Dur- 
ing my  last  weeks  in  Berlin  it  had  been  much 
talked  about,  a  splendid  theatrical  spectacle  put 
on  with  consummate  art,  and  lavish  expendi- 
ture. I  had  not  seen  it.  Heredity  from  eight 
Puritan  generations  reinforced  by  impecuniosity 
had  kept  me  from  that.  But  I  had  heard  of  the 
wonderful  visions  of  beauty  and  grace.  My 
handsome  comrade  of  the  Bavarian  Alps  had 
been  at  the  centre  of  it  all,  the  god  Apollo,  or 
whatever  glittering  divinity  or  genius  it  was 
that  swayed  the  enchantments  and  led  in  the 
rhythmic  circlings.  Good  cause  indeed  I  had 
had  to  admire  his  physical  beauty.  He  had  been 
picked  out  for  that  no  doubt  among  thousands, 
then  painfully  trained  for  years  until  in  figure 
and  frame  he  was  a  model. 

The  gay  pleasure  garden  in  which  we  had 
parted  lay  close  to  a  gloomy  monastic  structure, 
centuries  old,  that  from  a  height  dominated  the 
little  town.     The  garden  and  the  structure  were 


316  The  Last  Leaf 

symbols  of  what  was  most  salient  in  that  coun- 
try— the  ancient  church  braced  against  progress, 
with  its  power  broken  in  no  way,  and  on  the 
other  hand  of  a  life  interpenetrated  with  things 
graceful  and  refined,  with  art,  music,  and  poetry, 
but  seamed,  too,  with  frivolity  and  what  makes 
for  the  pleasures  of  sense.  My  two  friends  also 
were  in  their  way  types, — the  cowled  Franciscan, 
aloof  in  a  mediaeval  seclusion  though  he  breathed 
nineteenth-century  air,  and  the  dancer  whom  I 
encountered  in  the  vale,  above  which  the  Watz- 
mann  upholds  forever  its  solemn  mitre.  But 
they  were  good  fellows  both,  my  comrade  in  and 
my  comrade  out.  The  monk's  heart  was  not  too 
shrivelled  to  flow  with  human  kindness,  and  the 
dancer  had  not  unlearned  in  the  glare  of  the 
foot-lights  the  graces  of  a  gentleman. 

I  profess  to  be  a  man  of  peace.  Through 
training,  environment,  and  calling  I  ought  to 
be  so,  and  yet  there  is  a  fibre  in  my  make-up 
which  has  always  throbbed  strangely  to  the 
drum.  Is  it  perhaps  a  streak  of  heredity?  In 
almost  every  noteworthy  war  since  the  founda- 
tion of  the  country,  men  of  my  line  have  borne 
a  part.  I  count  ancestors  who  stood  among  the 
minute-men  at  Concord  bridge.  Another  was  in 
the  redoubt  at  Bunker  Hill.  In  the  earlier  time 
two  great-great-grandfathers  went  out  against 
Montcalm  and  were  good  soldiers  in  the  Old 
French  War.     Still  earlier  a  progenitor,  whose 


Old  Battlefields  317 

name  I  beay,  faced  the  Indian  peril  in  King 
Philip's  War,  and  was  among  the  slain  in  the 
gloomy  Sudbury  fight.  Perhaps  it  is  a  trace 
from  these  ancient  forbears  still  lingering  in  my 
blood  that  will  respond  when  the  trumpets  blow, 
however  I  strive  to  repress  it,  and  it  has  given 
me  qualms. 

I  was  not  easy  in  mind  when  I  stood  on  the 
tower  of  St.  Stephen's  Church,  in  Vienna  more 
than  forty  years  ago,  to  find  that  what  I  sought 
most  eagerly  in  the  superb  landscape  was  not 
the  steep  Kahlenberg,  not  the  plumy  woods  of 
Schonbrunn,  not  the  Danube  pouring  grandly 
eastward,  nor  the  picturesque  city  at  my  feet; 
but  the  little  hamlets  just  outside  the  suburbs, 
and  the  wide-stretching  grain-field  close  by,  turn- 
ing yellow  under  the  July  sun,  where  Napoleon 
fought  the  battles  of  Aspern  and  Wagram.  ISTor 
was  I  quite  easy  when  I  set  out  to  climb  the 
St.  Gotthard  Pass,  to  find  that  although  the 
valley  below  Airolo  was  so  green  with  fertile  pas- 
ture, and  from  the  glaciers  above  me  the  heavens 
were  pricked  so  boldly  by  the  splintered  peaks,  I 
was  thinking  most  where  it  was  precisely  that 
old  Suwarrow  dug  the  grave  and  threatened  to 
bury  himself,  when  his  army  refused  to  follow 
him;  then  how  he  must  have  looked  when  he 
had  subdued  them,  riding  forward  in  his  sheep- 
skin, or  whatever  rude  Russian  dress  he  wore, 
this  uncouth  hero  who  needed  no  scratching  to 
be  proved  Tartar,  while  his  loving  host  pressed 


318  The  Last  Leaf 

after  him  into  every  death-yielding  terror  that 
man  or  nature  could  throw  across  his  path. 

That  I  had  good  reason  for  my  uneasiness,  on 
second  thoughts,  I  do  not  belieye.  Nor  do  I 
believe  it  is  just  for  you,  high-toned  friend,  to 
censure  me  as  somewhat  low  and  brutal,  when 
I  confess  that  of  all  one  can  see  in  Europe, 
nothing  thrilled  me  quite  so  much  as  the  great 
historic  battle-fields.  Nothing  deserves  so  to  in- 
terest man  as  man  himself ;  and  what  spots,  after 
all,  are  so  closely  and  nobly  connected  with  man 
as  the  spots  where  he  has  fought?  That  we  are 
what  we  are,  indeed  that  we  are  at  all, — that 
any  race  is  what  it  is  or  is  at  all, — was  settled 
on  certain  great  fields  of  decision  to  which  we 
as  well  as  every  race  can  point  back.  And  then 
nothing  absorbs  us  like  a  spectacle  of  pain  and 
pathos!  Tragedy  enchants,  while  it  shocks. 
The  field  of  battle  is  tragedy  the  most  shock- 
ing; is  it  doing  indignity  to  our  puzzling  nature 
to  say  it  is  tragedy  most  absorbing?  And  there 
is  another  side.  Once  at  midnight,  in  the  light 
of  our  bivouac-fire,  our  captain  told  us  in  low 
tones  that  next  day  we  were  to  go  into  battle. 
He  was  a  rude  fellow,  but  the  word  or  two  he 
spoke  to  us  was  about  duty.  And  I  well  re- 
member what  the  men  said,  as  we  looked  by  the 
fire-light  to  see  if  the  rifles  were  in  order.  They 
would  go  into  fire  because  duty  said,  "  Save  the 
country ! "  and  when,  soon  after,  the  steeply- 
sloping  angle  of  the  enemy's  works  came  into 


Places  of    Tragic  Interest  319 

view,  ominously  red  in  the  morning  light,  and 
crowned  with  smoke  and  fire,  while  the  air 
hummed  about  our  ears  as  if  swarming  with 
angry  bees,  and  this  one  and  that  one  fell,  there 
was  scarcely  one  who,  as  he  pulled  his  cap  close 
down  and  pushed  ahead  in  the  skirmish-line,  was 
not  thinking  of  duty.  They  were  boys  from 
farm  and  factory,  not  greatly  better,  to  say  the 
most,  than  their  fellows  anywhere;  and  we  may 
be  sure  that  thought  of  duty  has  always  much 
to  do  with  the  going  forward  of  weaponed  men 
amongst  the  weapons.  Men  do  fight,  no  doubt, 
from  mere  recklessness,  from  hope  of  plunder  or 
glory;  and  sometimes  they  have  been  scourged 
to  it.  But  more  often,  where  one  in  four  or  five 
is  likely  to  fall,  the  nobler  motive  is  uppermost 
with  men  and  felt  with  burning  earnestness  too, 
which  only  the  breath  of  the  near-at-hand  death 
can  fan  up.  No!  there  is  reason  enough  why 
battle-fields  should  be,  as  they  are,  places  of  pil- 
grimage. The  remoteness  of  the  struggle  hardly 
diminishes  the  interest  with  which  we  visit  the 
scene;  Marathon  is  as  sacred  as  if  the  Greeks 
conquered  there  last  year.  Nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  do  we  need  poetic  haze  from  a  century  or 
two  of  intervening  time:  Gettysburg  was  a  con- 
secrated spot  to  all  the  world  before  its  dead 
were  buried.  There  need  be  no  charm  of  nature ; 
there  are  tracts  of  mere  sand  in  dreary  Branden- 
burg, where  old  Frederick,  with  Prussia  in  his 
hand,  supple  and  tough  as  if  plaited  into  a  nation 


320  TKe  Last  Leaf 

out  of  whip-cord,  scourged  the  world;  and  these 
tracts  are  precious.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
grandest  natural  features  seem  almost  dwarfed 
and  paltry  beside  this  overmastering  interest. 
On  the  top  of  the  Grimsel  Pass  there  is  a  melan- 
choly, lonely  lake  which  touches  the  spirit  as 
much  as  the  Rhone  glacier  close  by,  or  the  soar- 
ing Finster-Aarhorn,  the  Todten  See  (Sea  of  the 
Dead),  beneath  whose  waters  are  buried  soldiers 
who  fell  in  battle  there  on  the  Alpine  crags. 
Had  I  defined  all  this,  I  need  not  have  felt 
uneasy  on  St.  Stephen's  spire  or  the  St.  Got- 
thard.  We  are  not  necessarily  brutal  if  our  feet 
turn  with  especial  willingness  toward  battle- 
fields. There  man  is  most  in  earnest;  his  sense 
of  duty  perhaps  at  its  best;  the  sacrifice  great- 
est, for  it  is  life.  Theirs  are  the  most  momen- 
tous decisions  for  weal  or  woe;  theirs  the 
tragedy  beyond  all  other  tremendous  and  solemn. 
It  is  right  that  the  sacrifice  they  have  witnessed 
should  possess  an  alchemy  to  make  their  acres 
golden. 

The  humane,  and  I  hope  I  may  be  counted 
among  the  number,  have  long  wished  that  some 
milder  arbitrament  than  that  of  arms  might  in- 
tervene to  settle  the  disagreements  of  men.  No 
such  arbitrament  has  as  yet  come  into  being. 
We  settle  our  disputes  in  this  way,  and  history 
must  record  the  struggles,  however  reluctantly. 
As  an  historical  writer,  it  has  been  my  function 
to  deal  with  times  of  conflict  in  various  periods 


Writing  about  the  Civil  War      321 

and  lands.  When  I  was  seventy  years  old  I 
began  writing  a  history  of  our  Civil  War.  To 
have  at  hand  the  literature  of  the  period  I  went 
to  Washington,  where  the  most  kind  officials  of 
the  Library  of  Congress  assigned  to  me  a  roomy 
alcove  in  the  north  curtain  with  a  desk  and 
ample  surrounding  shelves.  These  were  filled 
for  me  by  expert  hands  with  whatever  I  might 
require  for  my  task,  and  a  screen  shut  off  my 
corner  from  the  corridor  through  which  at  times 
perambulated  Roosevelt,  and  other  secluded 
delvers,  intent  on  early  Gaelic  literature  and 
what  not.  Here  I  spent  the  most  of  two  years, 
finding  it  an  ideal  spot,  but  my  task  required 
more  than  an  examination,  under  the  quiet  light 
of  my  great  window,  of  books  and  documents. 
The  fields  themselves  must  also  be  surveyed,  so 
I  travelled  far  until  I  had  visited  the  scene  of 
nearly  every  important  conflict  and  traced  the 
lines  of  march  in  the  great  campaigns.  I  was 
already  a  haunter  of  old  battle-fields,  that  thread 
of  heredity,  from  a  line  of  forbears  very  martial 
in  their  humble  way,  asserting  itself  in  what- 
ever lands  I  wandered.  I  had  been  at  Hastings, 
and  had  traced  the  Ironsides  to  Marston  Moor 
and  Naseby.  I  had  stood  by  the  Schweden- 
Stein  at  Ltitzen,  and  tramped  the  sod  of  Leipsic 
and  Waterloo.  It  was  for  me  now  to  see  our 
own  fields  of  decision,  fields  ennobled  bv  a 
courage  as  great  and  a  purpose  as  high  as 
soldiers  have  ever  shown. 


322  The  Last  Leaf 

To  mark  Waterloo  the  Belgians  reared  a 
mound  of  huge  dimensions,  scraping  the  terrain 
far  and  near  to  obtain  the  earth.  Wellington 
is  said  to  have  remarked  that  the  features  of 
the  ground  had  been  so  far  obliterated  by  this 
that  he  could  not  recognise  his  own  positions. 
One  wonders  whether  the  future  may  not  blame 
our  generation  for  transformations  almost  as 
disguising.  Gettysburg,  Chickamauga,  Vicks- 
burg,  and  Shiloh  are  now  elaborate  parks.  No 
mounds  have  been  reared,  but  the  old  roads  are 
smooth  boulevards,  trim  lawns  are  on  the  ragged 
heights,  the  landscape-gardener  has  barbered  the 
grim  rough  face  of  the  country-side  into  some- 
thing very  handsome  no  doubt,  but  the  imagina- 
tion must  be  set  to  work  to  call  back  the  arena 
as  it  was  on  the  battle-day.  From  various  points 
of  vantage  memorials  make  appeal,  statues,  obe- 
lisks, Greek  temples,  and  porches,  bewildering 
in  their  number,  and  now  and  then  making 
doubtful  claims.  "  This  general,"  some  scru- 
tiniser  will  tell  you,  "  never  held  the  line  as- 
cribed to  him  and  that  pompous  pile  falsely 
does  honour  to  troops  who  really  wavered  in 
the  crisis."  I  know  I  run  counter  to  prevailing 
sentiment  in  saying  that  I  prefer  a  field  un- 
changed, not  with  features  blurred  by  an  over- 
laying of  ornamental  and  commemorative  ac- 
cretions. A  few  markers  of  the  simplest,  and  a 
plain  tablet  now  and  then  where  a  hero  fell  or 
valour  was  unusually  conspicuous,  should  suffice, 


On  tHe  TracK  of  tKe  Armies       323 

for  a  field  is  more  impressive  that  lies  for  the  most 
part  in  its  original  rudeness  and  solitude.  At 
Antietam  I  found  little  obtrusive.  Sherman's 
fields  on  the  way  to  and  about  Atlanta  have  not 
been  marred ;  nor  at  Franklin  and  Nashville  are 
the  plains  parked  and  obelisked  out  of  recog- 
nition. At  Bull  Run  I  climbed  with  a  veteran 
of  the  signal-service  into  the  top  of  a  high  tree, 
an  old  war-time  station,  on  the  hill  near  the 
Henry  House.  The  precarious  platform  re- 
mained. From  such  an  eyrie  in  the  same  grove, 
perhaps  from  this  same  tree,  a  Southern  friend 
of  mine,  on  the  battle-day,  caught  sight  more 
than  two  leagues  away  of  the  glint  of  sunlight 
on  cannon  and  bayonets  toward  Sudley  Springs, 
and  sent  timely  notice  to  Beauregard  that  a 
Federal  column  was  turning  his  left.  Under 
my  eye  the  landscape  was  unchanged,  with  no 
smoothings  or  intrusions  to  embarrass  the  im- 
agination in  making  the  scene  real.  But  it  was 
in  the  Wilderness  that  I  felt  especially  grateful 
that  the  wild  thickets  for  the  most  part  had  been 
let  alone.  I  found  at  Fredericksburg  an  old 
Confederate,  one  of  Mahone's  command,  and 
hiring  an  excellent  roadster,  we  drove  on  a  per- 
fect autumn  day  first  to  Spottsylvania  Court 
House,  then  across  country  to  the  Brock  road, 
then  home  by  the  Wilderness  church  and  Chan- 
cellorsville.  On  the  area  we  traversed  were 
fought  four  of  our  most  memorable  battles,  an 
area  now  scarcely  less  tangled  and  lonely  than 


3«4  The  Last  Leaf 

when  the  Federals  poured  across  the  Rappa- 
hannock into  its  thickets  by  the  thousand,  and 
were  so  memorably  met.  My  veteran  knew  the 
pikes  and  the  by-paths,  and  we  fraternised  with 
the  warmth  usual  among  foemen  who  at  last 
have  become  friends.  He  knew  the  story  well 
of  every  wood-path  and  cross-roads.  Certainly 
I  was  glad  that  the  rugged  acres  had  undergone 
no  "  improvement,"  and  that  the  eye  fell  so 
nearly  on  what  the  old-time  soldiers  saw.  It  so 
happened  it  was  election-day.  There  were  poll- 
ing-places at  the  court-houses  of  Fredericksburg 
and  Spottsylvania,  at  Todd's  Tavern,  and  the 
Chancellor  house,  names  bearing  solemn  associa- 
tions. The  neighbourhoods  had  come  out  to  vote, 
and  introduced  by  my  comrade,  I  had  some  inter- 
esting encounters.  It  was  a  good  climax,  when 
toward  the  end,  near  the  Chancellor  House,  we 
met  in  the  road  a  patriarchal  figure,  white- 
bearded  and  sturdy,  on  his  way  home  from  the 
polls.  It  was  old  Talley,  whose  log-house,  in 
1862,  was  the  point  from  which  Stonewall  Jack- 
son began  his  sudden  rush  upon  Hooker's  right. 
Talley,  then  a  young  farmer,  had  walked  at  the 
General's  stirrup  pointing  out  the  way.  He  had 
interesting  things  to  tell  of  Stonewall  Jackson 
at  that  moment  when  his  career  culminated. 
"  What  did  he  seem  like?  "  I  queried.  "  He  was 
as  cool  and  business-like  as  an  old  farmer  look- 
ing after  his  fences."  On  an  old  battle-field 
which  had  been  illustrated  by  an  achievement 


THe  Graves  of  Lee  and  S.  JacKson  325 

of  the  Stonewall  division  especially  brilliant,  I 
chanced  to  meet  a  grey  veteran  who  had  taken 
part  in  it,  a  North  Carolinian  who  had  come 
back  to  review  the  scene.  We  fraternised,  of 
course.  "  What  did  Stonewall  Jackson  look 
like?  "  I  said.  Stepping  close  to  me,  the  "  Tar- 
heel "  extended  his  two  gnarled  forefingers,  and 
pressed  between  the  tips  my  cheek-bones  on 
either  side.  "  He  had  the  broadest  face  across 
here  I  ever  saw,"  he  said.  Such  a  physiogno- 
mical trait  is  perhaps  indicative  of  power  of 
brain  and  will,  but  I  do  not  recall  it  among  the 
usual  descriptions  of  Jackson. 

Naturally,  after  surveying  much  Virginia 
country  once  war-swept,  as  I  came  to  the  head 
of  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  I  could  not  miss  a 
visit  to  Lexington,  where  repose  in  honoured 
graves  two  such  protagonists  as  Lee  and  Stone- 
wall Jackson.  It  is  a  beautiful  town  among  low 
mountains  green  to  the  summit,  and  in  the 
streets  not  a  few  lovely  homes  of  the  Virginia 
colonial  type,  draped  with  ivy  and  wisteria. 
There  stand  the  buildings  of  Washington  and 
Lee  University,  in  the  chapel  of  which  lies  buried 
Eobert  E.  Lee,  and  a  short  mile  beyond  is  the 
Virginia  Military  Institute,  from  which  Stone- 
wall Jackson  went  forth  to  his  fame.  The 
memorial  at  Jackson's  grave  is  appropriate,  a 
figure  in  bronze,  rugged  as  he  was  in  face  and 
attire,  the  image  of  him  as  he  fought  and  fell. 
Different,  but  more  impressive  is  the  memorial 


3*6  TKe  Last  Leaf 

of  Lee.  You  enter  through  the  chapel  where 
the  students  gather  daily,  then  passing  the 
chancel,  stand  in  a  mausoleum,  where  nobly 
conceived  in  marble  the  soldier  lies  as  if  asleep. 
He  bears  his  symbols  as  champion  in  chief  of 
the  "  Lost  Cause,"  but  the  light  on  his  face  is  not 
that  of  battle.  It  is  serene,  benignant,  at  peace. 
I  was  deeply  moved  as  I  stood  before  it,  but 
soon  after  I  was  to  experience  a  deeper  thrill. 
The  afternoon  was  waning  when  I  walked  on  to 
the  Military  Institute.  Stonewall  Jackson  had 
been  for  ten  years  a  teacher  there.  The  turf 
of  the  parade  I  was  crossing  had  perhaps  felt 
no  footfall  more  often  than  his.  Two  or  three 
hundred  pupils,  the  flower  of  Virginia  youth, 
were  assembled  in  battalion,  and  I  witnessed 
from  a  favourable  point  their  almost  perfect 
drill.  As  the  sun  was  about  to  set,  they  formed 
in  a  far-extending  line,  with  each  piece  at 
present.  They  were  saluting  the  flag,  which 
now  began  slowly  to  descend  from  its  staff. 
Lo,  it  was  the  flag  of  the  Union.  The  band 
played,  I  thought,  with  unusual  sweetness,  the 
Star- Spangled  Banner,  and  to  the  music  those 
picked  youths  of  the  South,  sons  and  grandsons 
of  the  upholders  of  the  right  to  sever,  did  all 
possible  honour,  on  the  sod  which  Stonewall 
Jackson  trod,  hard  by  the  grave  of  Lee,  to  the 
symbol  of  a  country  united,  states  now  and  here- 
after in  a  brotherhood  not  to  be  broken !  It  was 
a  scene  to  evoke  tears  of  deep  emotion,  for  never 


Misguided  Champions  327 

before  or  since  has  it  come  home  to  me  so  power- 
fully that  the  Union  had  been  preserved. 

Closing  as  I  do  now  my  record  of  memories, 
I  feel  that  the  most  momentous  of  the  crises 
through  which  it  has  been  my  lot  to  pass  is  that 
attending  the  maintenance  of  the  Federal  bond 
in  the  United  States.  Assemblies  of  veterans  of 
the  Confederacy  and  those  who  address  them 
scout  the  idea  that  they  fought  to  preserve  negro 
bondage.  A  late  historian  of  our  Civil  War, 
Professor  Paxon,  of  Wisconsin,  holds  it  to  be 
"  reasonably  certain  "  that  in  another  generation 
slavery  would  have  disappeared  of  itself,  a  con- 
tention surely  open  to  dispute.  Here  I  neither 
dispute  nor  approve,  but  only  say,  if  the  claim 
can  be  made  good,  what  a  vindication  would  it 
constitute  of  men,  who  looked  for  the  quiet  dying 
out  of  an  inveterate  evil,  deprecating  passionate 
attack  upon  a  thing  moribund?  And  what  an 
indictment  of  the  John  Browns,  whose  im- 
patient consciences  pressed  for  instant  aboli- 
tion careless  of  whatever  cataclysm  it  might 
involve!  Certainly  the  two  prime  champions 
whose  graves  I  saw  at  Lexington  did  not  fight 
to  sustain  slavery.  Their  principle  was  that  a 
State  could  not  be  coerced, — and  that  therefore 
sovereignty  lay  in  the  scattered  constituents  and 
not  at  the  centre.  The  arbitrament  of  the 
sword  was  sharp  and  swift,  and  happily  for  the 
world  it  went  against  them.  I  well  recall  the 
map  of  Germany  I  studied  when  a  boy,  a  page 


328  The  Last  Leaf 

blotched  and  seamed  with  bewildering  spots  of 
colour.  The  effort  was  to  portray  the  position 
of  some  three  hundred  independent  political 
units,  duchies,  principalities,  bishoprics,  free 
cities,  and  what  not,  among  electorates  and 
kingdoms  of  a  larger  sort,  but  still  minute.  It 
seemed  like  a  pathological  chart  presenting  a 
face  broken  out  with  an  unseemly  tetter.  The 
land  indeed,  in  those  days,  was  afflicted  by  a 
sad  political  disease.  The  Germans  call  it 
" P  articular  ismus  "  or  "Vielstaaterei"  the  break- 
ing up  of  a  nationality  into  a  mass  of  fragments. 
Some  on  the  map  were  scarcely  larger  than  pin- 
heads,  and  in  actual  area  hardly  exceeded  a 
fair-sized  farm.  In  that  time  Heine  laughed  at 
one  of  them  after  this  fashion,  while  describing 
a  journey  over  it  in  bad  weather: 

"  Of  Buckeburg's  principality 

Full  half  on  my  boots  I  carried. 
Such  muddy  roads  I  've  never  beheld 
Since  here  in  the  world  I  Jve  tarried." 

The  consequences  of  this  disintegration  were 
disastrous  to  the  dignity  of  Germany  and  the 
character  of  her  people.  She  had  no  place 
among  the  real  powers  of  the  world  politically, 
and  her  masses,  lacking  the  stimulus  of  a  noble 
national  atmosphere,  were  dwarfed  and  shrivelled 
into  narrow  and  timid  provincialism,  split  as 
they  were  into  their  little  segregations.     Patriot- 


Evils  of  Disintegration  329 

ism  languished  in  dot-like  States  oppressively 
administered,  without  associations  to  awaken 
pride,  or  generous  interests  to  evoke  devotion. 
Spirits  like  Lessing  and  Goethe,  all  but  derided 
patriotism.  It  scarcely  held  a  place  among  the 
proper  virtues.  The  small  units  were  forever 
unsympathetic  and  inharmonious,  jealous  over 
a  petty  "  balance  of  power  "  and  always  liable 
to  war.  The  disease  which  the  face  of  the  map 
suggested  to  the  boy's  imagination  was  indeed 
a  real  one,  inveterate,  deep-seated,  and  prostrat- 
ing to  all  that  is  best  in  human  nature.  For  a 
few  years,  before  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, America  seemed  likely  to  fall  a  prey  to  it, 
each  of  the  thirteen  States  standing  aloof  on  its 
own  little  dignity  in  a  bond  scarcely  more  than 
nominal,  of  the  weakest  and  coolest.  In  1787 
came  the  beneficent  change.  The  thirteen  and 
those  that  followed  the  thirteen  were  made  one, 
and  it  was  the  beginning  of  a  grand  unifying 
in  many  lands.  Following  an  instinct  at  first 
only  faintly  manifest  but  which  soon  gathered 
strength,  disintegrated  Germany  became  one. 
Italy,  too,  became  one,  and  in  our  old  home  the 
"Little  Englanders,"  once  a  noteworthy  com- 
pany, succumbed  to  a  conquering  sentiment  that 
England  should  become  a  "  great  world- Venice," 
and  the  seas  no  longer  barriers,  but  the  high- 
ways, through  which  the  parent-state  and  her 
brood  of  dominions,  though  flung  far  into  many 
zones,   should   yet   go   easily   to   and   fro,   not 


330  The  Last  Leaf 

separate  nations,  nor  yet  a  company  bound  to- 
gether by  a  mere  rope  of  sand,  but  one.  Great 
nations  replaced  little  states. 

Had  the  South  prevailed  in  the  Civil  War, 
there  would  have  been  a  distinct  and  calamitous 
set-back  in  the  world  movement.     It  would  have 
been  a  reaction  toward  particularism,  and  how 
far  might  it  not  have  gone?     Into  what  granula- 
tions might  not  our  society  have  crumbled?    The 
South's  principle  once  recognised,  there  could 
have  been  no  valid  or  lasting  tie  between  States 
Counties  even  might  have  assumed  to  nullify 
and  towns  to  stand  apart  sufficient  unto  them 
selves.     When  the  thing  was  doubtful  with  us 
the  North  by  no  means  escaped  the  infection 
The  New  York  City  of  Fernando  Wood  con 
templated  isolation  not  only  from  the  Union  but 
from  the  State  of  which  it  was  a  part.     Had 
the  spirit  then  so  rife  really  prevailed,  the  map 
of   America    to-day   might   have   been   no    less 
blotched  with  the  morbid  tetter  of  particularism 
than  that  of  the  Germany  of  sixty  years  ago. 
Centralisation  may  no  doubt  go  too  far,  but  in 
the  other  extreme  may  lie  the  gravest  danger, 
and  rushing  thitherward  the  South  was  blind  to 
the  risk.     I   stood  with   all   reverence  by  the 
graves  of  the  two  great  men  at  Lexington.    Per- 
haps no  Americans  have  been  in  their  way  more 
able,  forceful,  and  really  high-purposed.      But 
they  were  misguided,  and  their  perverted  swords 
all  but  brought  to  pass  for  us  and  the  future  the 


Eupeptic  Musings  33 1 

profoundest  calamity.  I  am  proud  to  have  been 
in  the  generation  that  fought  them  down,  believing 
that  upholding  the  country  was  doing  a  service 
to  the  world.  I  think  of  that  lofty  sentence 
inscribed  upon  the  memorial  of  Goldwin  Smith 
at  Ithaca,  "Above  all  nations  is  Humanity." 
Patriotism  is  not  the  highest  of  virtues.  It  is 
indeed  a  vice  if  it  limits  the  sympathies  to  a 
part.  Love  for  the  whole  is  the  sovereign  vir- 
tue, and  the  patriotism  is  unworthy  which  is 
not  subordinate  to  this,  recognising  that  its 
only  fitting  work  is  to  lead  up  to  a  love  which 
embraces  all. 

And  now  I  toss  the  "  Last  Leaf  "  on  my  prob- 
ably over-large  accumulation  of  printed  pages. 
What  I  have  set  down  is  in  no  way  an  auto- 
biography. It  is  simply  the  presentment  of  the 
panorama  of  nearly  fourscore  momentous  years 
as  unrolled  before  one  pair  of  eyes.  Whether 
the  eyes  have  served  their  owner  well  or  ill  the 
gentle  reader  will  judge.  I  hope  I  have  not 
obtruded  myself  unduly,  and  that  I  may  be  par- 
doned as  I  close,  if  I  am  for  a  moment  personal. 
My  eyes  have  given  me  notice  that  they  have 
done  work  enough  and  I  do  not  blame  them  for 
insisting  upon  rest.  As  to  organs  in  general  I 
have  scarcely  known  that  I  had  any.  They  have 
maintained  such  peace  among  themselves,  and 
been  so  quiet  and  deferential  as  they  have  per- 
formed their  functions  that  I  have  taken  no 
note  of  them,  having  rarely  experienced  serious 


332  TKe  Last  Leaf 

illness.  Had  ^Esop  possessed  my  anatomy, 
he  would  have  had  small  data  for  inditing  his 
fable  as  to  the  discord  between  the  "  Members  " 
and  their  commissariat,  and  the  long  generations 
might  have  lacked  that  famous  incentive  to  har- 
mony and  co-operation.  I  venture  to  say  this  in 
explanation  of  my  stubborn  optimism,  which  is 
due  much  less  to  any  tranquil  philosophy  I  may 
have  imbibed  than  to  my  inveterate  eupepsia. 
My  optimism  has  not  decreased  as  I  have  grown 
old,  and  I  record  here  as  the  last  word,  my  faith 
that  the  world  grows  better.  I  recall  with  vivid- 
ness nineteen  Presidential  campaigns,  and  be- 
lieve that  in  no  one  has  the  outlook  been  so 
hopeful  as  now.  Never  have  the  leaders  at  the 
fore  in  all  parties  been  more  able  and  high- 
minded.  I  have  purposed  in  this  book  to  speak 
of  the  dead  and  not  the  living.  Were  it  in 
place  for  me  to  speak  of  men  who  are  still 
strivers,  I  could  give  good  reason,  derived  from 
personal  touch,  for  the  faith  I  put  in  men  wiiose 
names  now  resound.  However  the  nation  moves, 
strong  and  good  hands  will  receive  it,  and  it 
will  survive  and  make  its  way.  Agitation,  the 
meeting  of  crises,  the  anxious  application  of 
expedients  to  threatening  dangers, — these  we 
are  in  the  midst  of,  we  always  have  been  and 
always  shall  be.  Turmoil  is  a  condition  of  life, 
beneficently  so,  for  through  turmoil  comes  the 
education  that  leads  man  on  and  up.  We  en- 
counter shocks  that  will  seem  seismic.     But  it 


Eupeptic  Musing's  333 

will  only  be  the  settling  of  society  to  firmer 
bases  of  justice.  In  our  confusions  England  is 
our  fellow,  but  a  better  world  is  shaping  there, 
though  in  the  earthquake  crash  of  old  strata  so 
much  seems  to  totter.  And  farther  east  in 
France,  Germany,  and  Russia  are  better  things, 
and  signs  of  still  better.  Levant  and  Orient 
rock  with  violence,  but  they  are  rocking  to  hap- 
pier and  humaner  order.  What  greater  miracle 
than  the  coming  to  the  front  among  nations  of 
Japan!  Will  her  people  perhaps  distance  their 
western  teachers  and  models.  Shall  we  re- 
verse the  poet's  line  to  read  "  Better  fifty  years 
of  China  than  a  cycle  of  the  West?"  Society 
proceeds  toward  betterment,  and  not  catastrophe, 
as  individuals  may  proceed  on  stepping-stones  of 
their  dead  selves  to  higher  things.  The  troubles 
of  the  child,  the  broken  toy,  the  slight  from  a 
friend,  the  failure  of  an  expected  holiday,  are 
mole-hills  to  be  sure,  but  in  his  circumscribed 
horizon  they  take  an  Alpine  magnitude.  His 
strength  for  climbing  is  in  the  gristle,  nor  has 
he  philosophy  to  console  him  when  blocked  by 
the  inevitable.  When  the  child  becomes  a  man 
his  troubles  are  larger,  but  to  surmount  them 
he  has  an  increment  of  spiritual  vigour,  which 
should  swell  with  passing  years.  He  lives  in 
vain  who  fails  to  learn  to  bear  and  forbear 
serenely.  For  human  society,  and  for  the  indi- 
viduals that  compose  it,  the  happy  time  lies  not 
belund  but  before,  and  I  invite  the  gentle  reader 


334  The  Last  Leaf 

to  accept  with  me  the  wise  and  kind  thought  of 
Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  now  growing  trite  on  the  lips 
of  men  because  we  feel  it  to  be  true: 

"  Grow  old  along  with  me. 

The  best  is  yet  to  be, — 
The  last  of  life  for  which  the  first  was  made. 

Our  times  are  in  His  hand 

Who  saith  a  whole  is  planned. 
Youth  shows  but  half.    Trust  God;  see  all; 

Nor  be  afraid." 


INDEX 


Agassiz,  Alexander,  in  college,  287;  leads  to  the  adoption 
of  crimson  as  the  Harvard  colour,  289;  as  captain  of 
industry,  289;  as  scientist,  290;  as  philanthropist,  293 

Agassiz,  Louis,  in  1851,  283;  as  scientist  and  teacher,  284; 
his  strength  and  limitations,  287 

Alcott,  A.  Bronson,  at  Concord,  249 

Alcott,  Louisa  M.,  in  young  womanhood,  237;  as  writer  for 
children,  238 

Andrew,  John  A.,  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  22;  his 
speech  to  the  selectmen,  24 

Antioch  College,  in  the  sixties,  67;  dramatics  at,  71 

B 

Bancroft,  George,  at  Berlin,  162;  his  love  for  roses,  165; 

at  Washington,  166 ;  as  a  historical  path-breaker,  167 
Banks,  N.  P.,  a  pathetic  figure,  his  rise  and  fall,  38 
Barlow,  Francis  C,  in  college,  57;  as  a  soldier,  61;  after 

the  war,  65 
Bartlett,  W.  F.,  as  a  soldier,  54 
Battle-fields,  as  places  of  interest,  316 
Berlin,  in  1870,  110 
Brooks,  Phillips,  as  a  youth,  255;  in  comic  opera,  257;  at 

the    Harvard    Commemoration.   260;    his   breadth   of 

spirit,  261;  at  Lowell's  funeral,  262 
Bryce,  James,  his  home  in  London,  194 
Buffalo,  in  1840,  1 

Bunsen,  the  chemist,  at  Heidelberg,  266 
Butler,  B.  F.,  at  New  Orleans,  41 

335 


33^  Index 

C 

Churchill,  Lord  Randolph,  198 

Churchill,  Winston,  200 

Clark,  James  B.,  of  Mississippi,  54 

Concord,  the  town  of,  233 

Cox,  Jacob  D.,  34 

Curtius,  Ernst,  at  Berlin,  206 


Dancer,  the,  at  the  Konigs-See,  310;  at  Salzburg,  313 
Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  in  his  prime,  6;  supports  Lincoln  in 

1861,  8 
Dramatics,  at  Antioch  College,  71;  in  the  schools  of  Eng- 
land, 80;  in  the  schools  of  France,  76;  in  the  schools 
of  Germany,  72 


E 


Eliot,  President  C.  W.,  as  an  oarsman,  223 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  in  his  prime,  246;  his  hospitality, 

248;  and  Walt  Whitman,  250;  in  old  age,  253 
Eupeptic  musings,  332 
Everett,   Edward,  his   conservatism,   16;   as   an   off-hand 

speaker,  17 


Fillmore,  Millard,  as  a  friend,  2;  signs  the  Fugitive  Slave 

Bill,  3;  effects  of  the  measure,  3;  his  home-life,  4; 

with  Lincoln  at  church,  5 
Fiske,  John,  in  youth,  168;  and  Mary  Hemenway,  169;  the 

"  Extension  of  Infancy,"  170;  his  love  for  music,  174; 

in  social  life,  175;  at  Petersham,  178 
France,  in  war-time,  151 
Francis  Joseph,  the  Emperor,  141 
Franciscan,  the,  at  Salzburg,  307 


Index  337 

Frederick,  the  Emperor,  139 

Frederick  the  Great,  his  statue,  110;  his  sepulchre,  131 

Freeman,  Edward  A.,  in  America,  185;  at  Somerleaze,  186 


Gardiner,  Samuel  R.,  in  London,  181 ;  at  Bromley,  183 

Garnett,  Sir  Richard,  at  the  British  Museum,  179 

Germany,  in  1870,  108 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  in  1886,  200 

Goethe  and  Schiller,  their  graves,  129 

Grant,  U.  S.,  his  greatest  conquest,  28 

Gray,  Asa,  in  the  Botanic  Garden,  278;  in  the  classroom, 

279;  as  a  lecturer,  281;  his  services  to  science,  282 
Grenadier,  the  young,  of  Potsdam,  144;  of  Weimar,  145 
Grey,  Mr.  William,  see  Stamford. 
Grimm,  the  brothers,  their  graves,  128 
Grimm,  Hermann,  at  Berlin,  212 

H 

Harrison,  W.  H.,  the  campaign  of  1840,  1 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  at  Concord,  239;  at  Brook  Farm, 

240 ;  as  a  ghost-seer,  242 ;  as  literary  artist,  243 
Heidelberg,  in  1870,  204 
Helmholtz,  the  scientist,  at  Heidelberg,  268 
Hohenzollern,  the  line  of,  132 
Hollis,  8;  at  Harvard,  161 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  as  an  oarsman,  223;  his  versatility  and 

wit,  224;  his  deeper  moods,  226 
Home-life,  in  Germany  in  1870,  124 
Howard,  O.  O.,  at  Gettysburg,  47 

K 

Kirchoff,  the  physicist,  at  Heidelberg,  265 

L 
Lepsius,  the  Egyptologist,  209 

22 


338  Index 

Lexington,  Va.,  graves  of  R.  E.  Lee  and  Stonewall  Jackson 
at,  325 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  at  church,  5 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  in  1851,  218;  the  incubation  of  Hia- 
watha, 225;  memorial  service  for,  221 

Lowell,  Charles  R.,  as  a  soldier,  55 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  in  his  prime,  227 ;  his  Yankee  story, 
227;  his  Commemoration  Ode,  229;  his  funeral,  232 

Ludwig,  King  of  Bavaria,  143 

Luther,  Martin,  his  grave  at  Wittemberg,  130 

M 

Mann,  Horace,  as  an  inspirer,  67 

Meade,  George  G.,  at  the  Harvard  Commemoration,  29 

Militarism,  in  Germany,  111 

Mommsen,  Theodor,  at  Berlin,  209 

Munich,  in  1870,  148 

Museum,  the  Royal,  at  Berlin,  121 

N 

New  Wrinkle  at  Sweetbrier,  71 

Newcomb,  Simon,  as  a  youth,  271;  his  parentage,  272;  as 

an  astronomer,  274;  his  last  years,  276 
Norman,  Sir  Henry,  197 


Paris,  in  war-time,  152 

Parliament,  in  1886,  195 

Pope,  John,  a  pathetic  figure,  42 


Ranke,  Leopold  von,  207 


Saxton,  Rufus,  at  Port  Royal,  S.  C,  48 
Schenkel,  Daniel,  211 
Schools,  in  Russia,  116 


Index  339 

Sedan,  The  debacle  at,  159 

Seward,  William  H.,  his  Plymouth  oration,  13;  his  too 

careless  cigar,  14;  the  Alaska  purchase,  15 
Sheridan,  Philip  H.,  28 
Sherman,  T.  W.,  at  Port  Royal,  S.  C,  50 
Sherman,  W.  T.,  in  private  life,  30;  at  dinner  with,  31; 

and  John  Fiske,  32 ;  his  funeral,  34 
Slocum,  Henry  W.,  and  Samuel  J.  May,  45 
Smith,  Goldwin,  at  Niagara,  191;  his  memorial  stone  at 

Cornell,  192 
Stamford,  the   Earl   of,  encountered   on  the   Mississippi, 

296;  as  a  household  guest,  301;  a  high-born  philan- 
thropist, 304 
Stevens,  Isaac  I.,  52 
Sumner,  Charles,  his  fine  presence,  18;  as  a  youth,  19;  a 

conversation  with,  21;  and  John  A.  Andrew,  24;  his 

strength  and  weakness,  26 
Switzerland,  in  1870,  150 


Taft,  W.  H.,  in  boyhood,  34 
Thoreau,  Henry  D.,  in  his  early  time,  235 
"  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too,"  2 
Treitschke,  von,  at  Heidelberg,  205 

U 

Uhlan,  the  young,  of  Erfurt,  145 

Union,  value  of  its  triumph  in  the  Civil  War,  327 

Universities,  of  Germany,  in  1870,  119 


Victoria,  Crown  Princess  of  Prussia,  139 

W 

Webster,  Daniel,  his  last  speech  in  Faneuil  Hall,  10;  his 
"  big  way,"  11 ;  his  "  Liberty  and  Union,  now  and 
forever,"  12 


34° 


Index 


Weimar,  the  young  grenadier  of,  145 

West  Pointers  and  civilians  in  the  Civil  War,  33 

Whitman,  Walt,  and  Emerson,  250 

Wilhelm  der  Grosse,  Kaiser,  138 

Wilhelm  II.,  Kaiser,  139 

Wilson,  James  H.,  49 

Winsor,  Justin,  as  youth  and  man,  167 

Winthrop,  Robert  C,  his  ability  and  conservatism,  17;  as 

master  of  the  feast,  18 
Wright,  H.  G.,  57 


A  Selection  from  the 
Catalogue  of 

G.  P,  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Complete  Catalogue  sent 
on  application 


The  Letters  of 

Ulysses  S.  Grant 

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uous years  of  campaigning.  It  is  a  human 
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ment. One  gathers  from  repeated  statements 
that  Grant  in  the  beginning  believed  that  the 
struggle  would  be  of  brief  duration.  His 
fervent  loyalty  and  profound  conviction  of 
the  justice  of  the  cause  he  was  defending,  the 
total  absence  of  consideration  of  self,  the  un- 
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"  Paris,  sullen,  poverty-stricken,  discontented;  Paris 
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G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


Abraham  Lincoln 

The  People's  Leader  in  the  Struggle  for  National 
Existence 


By  George  Haven  Putnam,  Litt.D. 

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through  his  work  at  the  Bar,  and  as  a  leader  in  the  political 
contests  that  preceded  the  war  for  the  restriction  of  slavery, 
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From  Robert  T.  Lincoln 

"  I  shall  preserve  this  volume  as  one  of  the  most  treasured 
of  those  relating  to  my  father.  .  .  .  Your  narrative  is  full 
of  interest  and  of  freshness  and  I  have  read  it  throughout 
with  the  greatest  pleasure." 

From  the  New  York  Sun 

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From  the  Cleveland  Leader 

"  A  comprehensive  study  of  the  life  and  character  of 
Lincoln,  presented  in  a  direct  and  attractive  manner,  and 
with  decided  charm  of  style.  .  .  .  One  of  the  most  valuable 
books  that  has  yet  been  brought  into  print  concerning 
the  great  Captain." 

New  York  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  London 


Biographies  of  Note 


The  Life  of 

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Queen  Victoria 

By  Clare  Jerrold 

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An  intimate  and  entertaining  account  of  the  upbring- 
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and  her  participation  in  the  affairs  of  state. 

The  Comedy  of 
Catherine  the  Great 

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whose  indelicacy  was  conspicuous  even  in  her  age  of 

easy  morals. 

New  York  G.     P.     Plltliam'S     SOIIS  London 


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